An OpEd in Rwanda’s New Times last week calls on policymakers and governments to address the continent’s unsustainable and harmful dependence on charcoal.
Africa: Why Energy Should Play a Crucial Role in Continent’s Development
By Oscar Kimanuka, 30 April 2012
* The African continent depends on wood and charcoal for cooking and heating. It is estimated that in 2010, nearly 550 million tonnes of wood were consumed in homes in sub-Saharan Africa in the form of firewood and charcoal.
* A recent study concludes that by 2030, smoke from wood fires used for cooking will cause about 10 million premature deaths among women and children in Africa.
* By 2050, according to the same study, smoke from cooking fires will release about 7 billion tonnes of carbon in the form of greenhouse gases to the environment – that’s about 6 per cent of the total expected greenhouses from the continent.
* The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) cannot be reached unless the developed world invests in Africa so that it can transition to the use of clean charcoal without increasing pollution and decimating the continent’s endangered and diminishing tropical forests.
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