Air pollution-related health and climate benefits of clean cookstove programs in Mozambique

Abstract

Approximately 95% of households in Mozambique burn solid fuels for cooking, contributing to elevated indoor and outdoor fine particulate matter (PM 2.5 ) concentrations and subsequent health and climate impacts. Little is known about the potential health and climate benefits of various approaches for expanding the use of cleaner stoves and fuels in Mozambique. We use state-of-thescience methods to provide a first-order estimation of potential air pollution-related health and climate benefits of four illustrative scenarios in which traditional cooking fires and stoves are displaced by cleaner and more efficient technologies. For rural areas, we find that a 10% increase in the number of households using forced draft wood-burning stoves could achieve >2.5 times more health benefits from reduced PM 2.5 exposure (200 avoided premature deaths and 14 000 avoided disability adjusted life years, DALYs, over a three-year project lifetime) compared to natural draft stoves in the same households, assuming 70% of households use the new technology for both cases. Expanding use of LPG stoves to 10% of households in five major cities is estimated to avoid 160 premature deaths and 11 000 DALYs from reduced PM 2.5 exposure for a three-year intervention, assuming 60% of households use the new stove. Advanced charcoal stoves would achieve ∽80% of the PM 2.5 -related health benefits of LPG stoves. Approximately 2%-5% additional health benefits would result from reduced ambient PM 2.5 , depending on the scenario. Although climate impacts are uncertain, we estimate that all scenarios would reduce expected climate change-related temperature increases from continued solid fuel use by 4%-6% over the next century. All results are based on an assumed adjustment factor of 0.8 to convert from laboratory-based emission reduction measurements to exposure reductions, which could be optimistic in reality given potential for continued use of the traditional stove. We conclude that cleaner cooking stoves in Mozambique can achieve health and climate benefits, though both are uncertain and local information about baseline and intervention PM 2.5 exposure levels are needed. a Derived from percentage PM 2.5 emissions reduced (per HH) multiplied by the 0.8 adjustment factor to convert to exposure reduction. b Assumed maintenance cost only for RND and RFD (fuel collected and not purchased), and for UMC scenarios (fuel use savings).Environ. Res. Lett. 12 (2017) 025006

Global radiative effects of solid fuel cookstove aerosol emissions

“…Cookstove intervention programs have been implemented in developing countries, such as China, India and some African countries, to improve air quality and human health and to mitigate climate change (Anenberg et al, 2017;Aung et al, 2016;Carter et al, 2016). Our results suggest that large-scale efforts to replace inefficient cookstoves in developing countries with advanced technologies is not likely to reduce global warming through aerosol reductions, and may even lead to increased global warming when aerosol-cloud interactions are taken into account.…”

Local Arctic Air Pollution: A Neglected but Serious Problem

“…In the absence of Arctic-specific air pollution epidemiology, it would be a reasonable extrapolation to apply the IERs to assess health impacts of air pollution in Arctic populations. Indeed, these curves have been used to assess air pollution health impacts on a global scale covering all populations (Anenberg, Daven, et al, 2017;Anenberg, Miller, et al, 2017;Apte et al, 2015;Cohen et al, 2017), and in individual countries where no air pollution epidemiology has been carried out (e.g., Anenberg, Daven, et al, 2017;Pillarisetti et al, 2016). Using similar extrapolations of epidemiologically derived concentration-response functions, several studies have estimated the health impacts of emissions from particular sources among Arctic nations, including shipping (Jonson et al, 2015), solid fuel heating (World Bank & ICCI, 2013.;Chafe et al, 2015;Sigsgaard et al, 2015), and transportation (Anenberg, Miller, et al, 2017;Crippa et al, 2016).…”

Rural–urban differences in cooking practices and exposures in Northern Ghana

“…These physical and environmental conditions may suggest the need for community-wide interventions, and potentially integrated interventions targeting a suite of pollution sources beyond cooking, rather than focusing only on residential cooking and rolling out new technologies house-by-house. Additionally, community-wide interventions can have increased benefits if higher penetration levels are realized in smaller geographical areas versus lower penetration levels in larger geographical areas [12].…”