By Patricia Nanteza
Now that it is ‘alarmingly’ clear that dirty cooking fuels cost lives, the G20 must use its influence to remove institutional barriers. The G20 must instruct the World Bank and other development banks to remove the de facto ban on financing LPG for clean cooking, immediately aligning policy with this life-saving declaration.
At wePlanet, we have been sounding the alarm about the human and environmental cost of dirty cooking fuels. Heck, we even rallied an entire community in central Uganda to help us depict this message more appealingly. Watch the full video here.
When the G20 convened in South Africa, they, too, were alarmed by the lack of clean cooking fuels and the resulting high number of deaths. Thank you, South Africa, for putting clean cooking at the forefront of the G20 summit.
The G20 Leaders’ Declaration, issued at the South Africa Summit, validated WePlanet’s core message in the #JustStopCooking Campaign by explicitly acknowledging the human catastrophe of energy poverty.
The G20 leaders stated with alarm that two million Africans lose their lives annually due to the absence of clean cooking fuels. This figure—a devastating toll from indoor air pollution caused by wood and charcoal—is now officially at the top of the global agenda, proving that this issue is a moral, public health, and climate emergency that demands pragmatic, immediate action.
The Hypocrisy Highlighted by #JustStopCooking
For months, our satirical yet sobering #JustStopCooking Campaign has used humour to expose the hypocrisy and “carbon colonialism” that restricts funding for immediate, scalable solutions like Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG).
Our campaign’s core argument is simple: How can global finance policies prohibit funding for LPG – a clean transition fuel that saves lives and forests – in Africa, while wealthier nations simultaneously expand their own fossil fuel infrastructure (like LNG terminals) in the name of “energy security?”
The G20’s recognition of the 2 million annual deaths is an urgent call to end this double standard.
The G20’s Response: Funding Life-Saving TransitionsThankfully, the G20 Declaration has committed to funding the solutions within a framework of Just and Inclusive Energy Transitions (JIET), directly addressing the finance blockade that WePlanet has fought to lift. They are promising to use every tool – from loan forgiveness to risk insurance – to make sure that funding for life-saving clean energy is cheap, available, and directed to where it is needed the most – in Africa. How? By:
- Concessional Finance and Blended Finance: Using public and philanthropic capital to de-risk investments and attract private sector funding for clean cooking infrastructure.
- Innovative Financing: Exploring mechanisms like debt-for-climate swaps to restructure debt in exchange for investment in life-saving clean energy projects.
- Voluntary Infrastructure Investment Action Plan: A direct commitment to supporting accessible and affordable clean cooking technologies, including LPG, through a conducive policy environment.
Action must follow alarmThe G20’s endorsement of the Voluntary Infrastructure Investment Action Plan is a vital step. However, a paper commitment is not enough.
This is where WePlanet demands accountability.
Most G20 members are shareholders of the World Bank. Now that it is ‘alarmingly’ clear that dirty cooking fuels cost lives, the G20 must use its influence to remove institutional barriers. The G20 must instruct the World Bank and other development banks to remove the de facto ban on financing LPG for clean cooking, immediately aligning policy with this life-saving declaration.
We must put saving lives before ideology. The G20 has sounded the alarm; now, they must deliver the funding.
#CleanCooking #G20SouthAfrica #ClimateFinance #JustStopCooking #LPG
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