Access to clean cooking services in energy and emission scenarios after COVID-19

Abstract

Slow progress in expanding clean cooking access is hindering progress on health, gender, equity, climate and air quality goals globally. Despite a rising population share with clean cooking access, the number of cooking poor remains stagnant. In this study we explored clean cooking access until 2050 under three reference scenarios, a COVID-19 recovery scenario and ambitious climate mitigation policy scenarios. Our analysis shows that universal access may not be achieved even in 2050. A protracted recession after the pandemic could leave an additional 470 million people unable to afford clean cooking services in 2030 relative to a reference scenario, with populations in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia the worst affected. Ambitious climate mitigation needs to be twinned with robust energy access policies to prevent an additional 200 million people being unable to transition to clean cooking in 2030. Our findings underline the need for immediate acceleration in efforts to make clean cooking accessible and affordable to all. Many socioeconomic growth and low-emission energy scenarios do not consider impacts on clean cooking access and have yet to account for the COVID pandemic. Pachauri et al. now examine how clean cooking access evolves under various scenarios post COVID and find the need for policy focused on increasing access more urgent.