Clean Cooking at the UN Environment Assembly
This week in Nairobi, the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) hosted the second session of the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA2) to inform and strengthen the call to action to address the critical environmental challenges facing the world today. Throughout UNEA2, the Alliance advocated for the prioritization of clean cooking as an effective intervention that delivers cross-cutting gains and boosts progress on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement.
Delegates from over 170 countries participated, joining hundreds of representatives from civil society, research institutions, and international and regional organizations. The Alliance hosted an official event titled “When the Clears: Delivering the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement through Clean Cooking” in collaboration with the Climate and Clean Air Collation, the Scientific and Technical Advisory Panel of the Global Environment Facility, the Ministry of Energy and Petroleum of Kenya, and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). With presentations; that provided the latest research, examples of implementation, and an explanation of how clean cooking fits into and is key to achieving the agreed upon global sustainable development and environmental priorities, the event made a strong case for scaling up clean cooking as a means of bringing about cross-cutting gains.
Ahead of UNEA2, UNEP launched the “Healthy Environment, Healthy People” report. Household air pollution and clean cooking were featured throughout the report, which called for increased and improved partnership and action to scale up the adoption of clean and efficient cookstoves and fuels. During UNEA, clean cooking was also frequently discussed as a high-potential opportunity to engender climate, environment, health, livelihood, and women’s empowerment gains, as well as fulfil one of the overarching themes of the SDGs: leave no one behind.
Alliance staff also contributed to panel discussions on renewable energy, gender, and the environemnt, including short-lived climate pollutants, and also benefited from the opportunity to relay the experiences of Alliance partners. The improving understanding of how clean cooking contributes to broader development and environment objectives was clear across these engagements, as well as the impact that can be achieved through effective collaboration to scale adoption of clean cooking fuels and technologies.