Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves Welcomes Pope’s Encyclical on Climate Change
Washington, DC (June 18, 2015) – Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves CEO Radha Muthiah today issued the following statement on the release of Pope Francis’ encyclical on the environment and climate change:
“Pope Francis’ message is a strong signal to global leaders on the need to address the major issues impacting our planet, including the need to improve the way billions of people cook. As Pope Francis notes in the first chapter of the encyclical, ‘People take sick, for example, from breathing high levels of smoke from fuels used in cooking or heating.’
“The Pope’s words underscore the importance of acting now to protect the more than 4 million people who die prematurely every year from illness attributable to the household air pollution from cooking with solid fuels. The use of open fires and traditional cookstoves and fuels is one of the world's most pressing health and environmental problems. Globally, three billion people rely on solid fuels to cook, causing serious environmental and health impacts that disproportionally affect women and children.
“Universal adoption of clean and efficient cookstoves and fuels would save millions of lives. It would also support the Pope’s call to reduce pollution and address climate change.
“Cooking fires produce up to 25% of the world's black carbon emissions and more than 2% of global greenhouse emissions. If 100 million households adopted cleaner and more efficient stoves, we could save 1.5 billion trees and 1.1 billion tons of CO2, equivalent to the emissions from 65,000,000 passenger vehicles.”
For more information on the work of the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, visit: www.cleancookstoves.org
About the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves
The Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves is a public-private partnership hosted by the UN Foundation that seeks to: save lives, improve livelihoods, empower women, and protect the environment by creating a thriving global market for clean and efficient household cooking solutions. The Alliance works with more than 1,200 public, private, and non-profit partners to accelerate the production, deployment, and adoption of clean cookstoves and fuels in developing countries.
Media Contact: Kip Patrick, 202-384-2992, kpatrick@cleancookstoves.org
Photo credit: presidencia.gov.ar [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons