Abstract
The Central American nations of Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua are among the poorest in the Americas. While the fraction of population dependent on solid fuels has declined in these nations over the last 25 years, the number of people using them has risen. Here, we first assess current patterns of cooking energy use in these nations. We then apply a discrete model of household cooking choices and demand to simulate future pathways of clean cooking uptake and the outlook for achieving target 7.1 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), which aims to ensure universal access to affordable, reliable and modern energy services by 2030. We find that by 2030, ensuing income growth is likely to enable 90% of urban populations in these nations to switch to using modern cooking energy services. However, without supporting policies, between 40% to 50% of rural Guatemalans and Hondurans, while over two-thirds of rural Nicaraguans, are likely to find clean fuels or stoves unaffordable in 2030. A targeted subsidy on modern fuels, like liquid petroleum gas (LPG), is the most effective policy mechanism we studied that could provide such support. A 50% subsidy policy on LPG targeted to the rural and urban poor population could, by 2030, make cooking with LPG affordable to an additional 7.3 million people in these countries. We estimate that such a policy would cost about $250 million per year and would have negligible greenhouse gas emissions impacts. Such a policy could also have significant health benefits, preventing about 8,890 premature deaths annually from reduced exposure to cooking-related household pollution in 2030.
Highlights
The Central American nations of Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua are among the poorest countries in the Americas
The share of liquid petroleum gas (LPG) that meets total cooking energy demand is highest in Guatemala, followed by Nicaragua and Honduras, which is consistent with the population share in the highest income group in the three countries (Table 4)
Deaths attributable to ALRI among children under 5 are seen to decline between 2010 and 2030 even in the absence of any access policies, but deaths due to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), ischemic heart disease (IHD) and strokes in adults are expected to increase during the same period
Summary
The Central American nations of Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua are among the poorest countries in the Americas. While a vast literature exists on understanding household cooking energy patterns and choices in different regions, fewer studies have proposed methods that allow for a forward looking analysis of future scenarios. The few studies that include forward looking scenarios have either econometrically estimated parameters influencing household cooking fuel choices [8,9], or used least-cost optimization to determine optimal cooking energy choices [10,11] These approaches are limited in their ability to account for multiple cooking fuel use and fuel stacking that is a regular feature of household energy use patterns in many developing countries [12]. Using available data from household surveys and national energy balances for these nations, we first assess current patterns in cooking energy demand and recent trends in improving access to clean cooking. We test different policy mechanisms for encouraging universal clean cooking access in each country by 2030, and quantify the policy costs, health and emissions implications of households’ responses in cooking fuel demand in comparison to a baseline
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