Accordingto World Health Organisation, nearly 2 million people die every year from illnesses attributable to indoor air pollution, such as pneumonia, chronic bronchitis and lung cancer. Approximately 87 per cent of these deaths occur in low and middle-income countries.

About 5000 people die in Rwanda due to air pollution mainly from traditional cooking methods such charcoal and firewood.

In an interview with Sunday Times, Yohannes Hailu, Energy Policy Expert at United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) says that government subsidization of improved cooking methods will go a long way in making cooking more clean, affordable and safer for the masses.

Below are the excerpts;

A new study commissioned by the Ministry of Environment and Rwanda Environment Management Authority recently revealed that motor vehicle emissions and biomass energy mostly from domestic cooking, are the biggest contributor to poor air quality in Rwanda. What do you make of this?

If you look at this report it is consistent with what countries have intended to do to reduce their reliance on biomass so as to mitigate as much emissions from the energy sector.

In Rwanda, about 5700 people die from poor quality air related diseases annually and a lot of that relates to cooking energy at household level. This also relates to environmental consequences. It makes sense to continue transitioning to clean cooking solutions and latest car technologies or do away with old cars as part of Rwanda’s contribution to global climate change fight.

Why do think Rwandans are delaying to switch from traditional cooking methods to clean cooking solutions?

If you look at all the developing countries in general, about 40 per cent of them use clean cooking methods. There has been some improvement. But when you come to Africa, that number drops to 10 per cent of those who use clean or improved cooking and methods.

Most African countries still depend on traditional cooking methods especially in the East African region. We can collectively say more than 85 per cent of the cooking in the EAC is done by traditional methods such as firewood in rural areas or mainly charcoal in townships and cities.

The transition has been quite challenging for so many reasons; one is that the new technology has been expensive to adopt therefore households are still relying on cheaper means which in this case is charcoal and firewood as opposed to  more efficient cooking technologies such as Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) and other improved methods whose cost has been quite high.

But in recent days, prices have changed and now we see that charcoal prices have tripled in the last 10 years which completely altered the economics around cooking. And on the contrary the prices have dramatically reduced for alternative clean cooking solutions which have significantly changed some behaviour so far.

The Second issue is some habits are very hard to break; for so long the tradition has been to cook a certain way for as long as I can remember.

Cooking energy in Africa has not been prioritized for such a long time, so when you introduce in a new technology the challenge you have is to provide more; awareness, education, demonstration, confidence around this new technology and that behavioral change takes time.

Previously the energy sector has been so much on electricity and to some extent on oil and gas but the biomass side has not received much on policy attention. It is only now because of Sustainable Development Goal number 7 which promotes universal access to clean cooking—it brought much attention to cooking technology and that’s why we are seeing significance progress lately.

Why should people be mindful about clean cooking?

Sustainable Development Goal number 7 says that by 2030 we have to achieve three things; one is to double the level of energy efficiency, second is to double the level of renewable energy use and third is to have universal access to electricity. Within these components there is a major objective which is to promote universal clean cooking.

The challenge with that is whether or not by 2030 we have to succeed or fail on SDG number 7 and this really depends on what will happen in Africa—particularly Sub-Saharan Africa – because about 90 per cent of the people are still using traditional cooking methods.

As part of the UN Agency, UNECA and UNDP plus other agencies are partnering with member states to think through on how we can support the clean cooking progress so that it accelerates for a much higher adoption rate.

The clean Cooking campaign in Rwanda is entirely because the government came up with the national biomass energy strategy which looked at reducing the level of reliance on biomass from 85 per cent to 50 per cent. We are now on a campaign to support that change in behavior to clean cooking era in the areas of LPG promotion, Agriculture waste to energy conversion process and other alternatives.

What is your take on Rwanda’s biomass energy strategy?

It recognises that transition takes time that’s why you will not see 100 per cent conversion or reducing it to zero. The action plan is very realistic in a sense that it is looking for pragmatic, manageable and measurable change in biomass consumption by reducing it to 50 per cent and once that has been achieved it will push for more aggressive targets.

The second thing about this Strategy is that it priorities all cooking energy alternatives – such as LPG and Improved cook stoves among others – without differentiating one or the other.

The strategy looks at a whole series of solutions effectively and progressively and in that sense, to me; it is a very practical way of reducing biomass energy reliance.

We still have about 95 per cent of Rwandans still using Charcoal and Firewood for cooking. How can the country move away from this much faster?

Long term, this transition would have even much happening the reason being – especially in the context of Eastern African – we have massive deficits between demand and supply even in the context of traditional cooking methods. In Rwanda there is an annual 29 percent gap between demand and supply which pushes prices up. If you go to Uganda that number increases to 69 per cent. In Kenya, that number –for Charcoal especially – the gap between demand and supply is 120 percent and in Burundi it is 206 per cent.

In the next five years the price of charcoal is going to go much higher and it will become increasingly difficult for households especially in rural areas to continue to rely on traditional cooking sources because it is going to become more expensive.

But because of Policy attention, national campaigns and programmes the alternatives are becoming more available and the private sector is bringing in more solutions. The more affordable and accessible these clean solutions become we are going to see natural reduction on biomass dependency.

There major hindrance to clean cooking solutions is the high upfront investment needed especially for LPG and some Cook stove appliances. What can be done to address that challenge?

In the case of LPG which has been classified as a better cooking alternative, there is a higher upfront cost because of tariff issues. Import tariffs are still high in most of the countries. It is important to eliminate Import tariff on LPG appliances to make it more affordable.

The second challenge has been the problem of the cylinder; for example Rwanda is considering banning 20Kg cylinder and encouraging 5kg and 10kg cylinder because if you take into account the major household income they are not likely to adopt an energy source that takes a lion’s share of their income.

There is a lot of conversation on how to bring the cost down in general, eliminate tariffs and make it more competitive.

In case of biogas, the government took a completely different approach. There is a plan to provide at least 50 per cent subsidies and this will make adoption possible.

If you see the trend between 2007 and 2014, the adoption rate of biogas in Rwanda is one of the fastest in Africa – from almost insignificant to more than 10,000 households adopting biogas technology in such a short time. If you look at this adoption rate closely it has to do with government taking up some of the big costs and subsidizing it.

So any measure the government takes to cut the cost makes clean cooking less affordable and less costly and more manageable given the income of most Rwandans.

How safe is LPG in terms of suspected explosions?

There have been rare cases of explosions really. Of course there might be cases of gas leakage and some houses exploded but if any, it is just an accident like others.

But the new cylinders that are being introduced are much safer, easier to transport and even in an event of an accident you will not have catastrophic explosion to be so much afraid of. So dangers of LPG might be exaggerated.

There’s also an issue of cheating in terms on LPG where illegal refilling is and other related cases. How can it be addressed in Rwanda?

That problem has been reported in all the East African countries. One solution has been to make sure that there’s quality control at the import source in Mombasa and Dare salaam.

There must be mandatory inspection by regulators to make sure importers are importing the right quality and there must be inspection at the filing stations so that there is no below-level refilling or refilling a cylinder that doesn’t belong to the importer. There must be a transparent refilling system.

editorial@newtimes.co.rw