SDG 7: Affordable and Clean Energy | SDG 13: Climate Action
Institutions: Ministry of Power | Ministry of New & Renewable Energy
The United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) new report “Advancing Clean Cooking for Climate Action: Pathways to Higher-Tier Solutions and Scaled Investment” recognizes clean cooking as a central climate and development priority, crucial for achieving universal access by 2030 (SDG 7.1) and net-zero emissions by 2050 from the cooking sector.
The urgency is driven by a severe deficit: 2.1 billion people still rely on polluting fuels, leading to an estimated 3.2 million deaths annually from household air pollution, and contributing significantly to climate change via black carbon emissions.
It provides practical guidance on how governments can systematically include clean-cooking measures in their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) and climate-policy frameworks to unlock investment and accelerate transition to higher-tier solutions (i.e., modern, low-emissions fuels and stoves).
The transition requires moving to higher-tier solutions (Tier 3/4 and above) such as electricity, biogas, and ethanol. This shift is essential because the co-benefits are vast: it advances gender equity (by reducing time poverty and health risks for women), improves public health (reducing premature deaths), and saves significant healthcare costs (e.g., $66 billion yearly in sub-Saharan Africa).
Scaling this transition demands a drastic acceleration of investment (estimated at $8 billion annually to 2030). Governments must integrate clean cooking with policy dialogue, strategic planning, and leverage public finance mechanisms, like Results-Based Financing (RBF), to crowd in private capital.
For India, where large segments of the population rely on traditional biomass and LPG use remains prominent, this report underscores the opportunity to integrate clean-cooking pathways into the national climate agenda, for instance via the National Clean Cooking Mission, linkage with the Nationally Determined Contribution, and accessing climate finance instruments.
Follow the full report here: UNDP Report “Advancing Clean Cooking for Climate Action”