Can clean cooking help solve climate change?

The practice of cooking over polluting open fires and inefficient stoves is destroying the environment, leading to millions of premature deaths each year. In this new debate, we find out why clean cooking is key to the fight against climate change and improving human health.

Many across the world are unaware of the importance of clean cooking in the fight against climate change. What is a fundamental task and necessity for most households results in 2% of total global carbon dioxide emissions. Fuels such as wood, charcoal, animal dung, crop residue, and coal are incredibly polluting when combusted, which means that no climate change solutions can exclude addressing the way people cook.

What's more, these polluting fuels and technologies harm not just the environment but the people who interact with them the most, causing respiratory illnesses, heart problems and more than 4 million premature deaths every year—50 percent of which are children under the age of 5.

Modern cooking solutions are the answer, experts say.