Clean Cooking Solutions Programme Nepal

Use of non-renewable biomass: about 75% of Nepal’s population (4m out of 5.43m households) use solid biomass (firewood, cattle-dung, or agro-waste) as their primary fuel with traditional cookstoves. Clean cooking solutions are very important from the perspective of indoor air pollution reduction, impact on health, energy efficiency improvement, climate change mitigation, forest management, and gender equality.

Carbon emissions: the use of clean cookstoves has great potential to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, since each stove can lower a significant amount of CO2 per year, compared to the emissions from an open fire burning non-renewable biomass. 

Deforestation: in Nepal, despite actions to promote good forest management, deforestation is a problem in many areas that can be ameliorated by the use of clean cookstoves.

Health and safety: Studies show more than 8,000 premature deaths in Nepal due to indoor air pollution caused by open fires, and Ganesha stoves greatly reduce smoke.