Background

Around 1.58 billion people in Asia and the Pacific or 34.5 per cent of the region’s population in 2019 still relied on highly polluting and harmful cooking solutions. These cooking practices are inefficient and produce high levels of household air pollution with a range of health-damaging pollutants. Close to 4 million people die prematurely from illness attributable to household air pollution from inefficient cooking practices using polluting stoves paired with solid fuels and kerosene. Urgent action must therefore be taken to achieve universal access to clean cooking. This necessary action will realize 3 important sustainable goals – that of affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy services for all (SDG 7), healthy lives and well-being for all (SDG 3) and readiness to combat climate change and its impacts (SDG 13). This workshop will deliberate on the critical issues confronting access to clean cooking. Recognizing the challenges at hand, what are the current market trends and appropriate technologies and approaches being implemented to address these challenges? Presentations will focus on case studies, successful programs and replicable projects that demonstrate suitable solutions to the adoption of clean cooking technologies. The session will also discuss what other ingredients are necessary to further speed-up the uptake and scale up of clean cooking access in Asia and the Pacific region.