Safe cooking for families in MyanmarIndoor cooking over open fires is very harmful to health. The resulting air pollution is responsible for the premature deaths of over 4 million people a year, more than HIV/AIDS and malaria combined. Fuel Efficient Stoves (FFS) reduce air pollution by 80%, significantly improving people's health and safety. Household carbon emissions are reduced by 60%, or four tonnes per year per stove. The Myanmar Stoves Campaign is the first Gold Standard certified climate project in Myanmar, which is now distributing those fuel-efficient cook stoves to thousands of families. But the stoves not only benefit people's health, but also the forests. Myanmar is the third largest cause of global deforestation. The more forests disappear, the more expensive wood becomes, which increasingly drives families into energy poverty. Every efficient cookstove reduces wood consumption by at least 50%, which reduces pressure on forests and lowers household expenditure on fuel. Reducing expenditure on wood makes a big difference to families already living in poverty, and reducing the time spent looking for wood means more time is available for smallholder farms and securing a good harvest.
How improved cookstoves contribute to climate actionAccording to a statistic from the World Health Organization (WHO, 2022) around a third of the global population still relies on unsafe and environmentally harmful cooking methods. This includes, for example, cooking over open fires or using polluting cooking fuels, such as coal or kerosene. Improved cookstoves tackle this problem by using thermal energy more efficiently. Depending on the model, an improved cookstove can reduce fuel consumption by up to 70 percent, which significantly saves CO2 emissions and can lower the pressure on local forests as less firewood needs to be harvested.
Improved cookstove projects allow the distribution of the - often simple - devices made from metal or clay to households, small enterprises or community facilities. Especially for households, this has an impact beyond the CO2 reduction: better indoor air quality decreases respiratory diseases and families can save time and money as less fuel is needed. Improved cookstoves projects in the ClimatePartner portfolio are registered with international standards.
