The Foreign Service Journal, April 2011

34 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / A P R I L 2 0 1 1 This should be just a picture from the past, but it reflects what is still happening today across South Asia and, indeed, in large tracts of the developing world. Approxi- mately 1.6 billion people worldwide still lack access to electricity, and some three billion people still use inefficient stoves that rely on tradi- tional biomass fuels such as fire- wood, crop residues and dung for their cooking needs. Multiple Inefficiencies Traditional stoves have many se- rious shortcomings. Their mud bodies are inefficient in- sulators and therefore devour more fuel than necessary. In addition, the volume of air cannot be controlled; too little air produces thick smoke, while too much cools the flames. Finally, inefficient combustion accounts for three-quarters of global emissions of black carbon parti- cles, also known as soot. The World Health Organization estimates that house- hold exposure to these particles causes 1.6 million pre- mature deaths per year, predominantly among women and children. Local studies in India show that women who have cooked on biomass stoves for years exhibit a higher prevalence of chronic lung disease than those with less exposure. In addition, black carbon causes or com- pounds pneumonia, bronchitis, cataracts, heart disease, high blood pressure and low birth weight. Inefficient stoves also impose a social burden that mostly falls on the shoulders of women. I can still vividly recall all the time my grandmother spent fretting over her fuel supply. She depended on cow dung that had to be painstakingly gathered, then mixed with hay and dried into small, pizza-shaped patties. Still, in one sense she was lucky. In poorer parts of South Asia where families don’t have their own cow, women must collect firewood from distant jungles, exposing them to being molested or injured every time they leave the safety of their homes. Surveys conducted in the hill areas of Nepal estimate that women there spend almost 2.5 hours every day collecting fodder, grass and firewood for fuel. The spread of deforestation forces them to go ever further afield, in- creasing their daily time invest- ment by another hour and leaving them less time to devote to agri- culture, child care or income-pro- ducing activities. The relentless search for fuel has put enormous pressure on the forests of South Asia. India has a rural population of 700 million people, many of whom collect their wood supply from forests. The situation in neighbouring Pakistan is even more pressing. The de- forestation rate there is one of the highest in the world, and was almost certainly a critical factor in aggravating last year’s devastating floods, the country’s worst-ever nat- ural disaster. The flooding killed nearly 2,000 people, displaced almost 18 million more and caused billions of dollars in damage. It will be years, perhaps decades, be- fore the country fully recovers. Finally, the effect of the chulhas goes beyond hearth and home. As the smoke escapes outdoors, it undergoes various chemical transformations in the presence of sun- light, leading to the formation of atmospheric brown clouds of particles and ozone gas that contribute to some 500,000 deaths annually. In addition, the ozone gas causes billions of dollars’ worth of crop damage. The soot from the chulhas also contributes to global warming. Like tiny, heat-absorbing black sweaters, soot particles warm the air and melt ice much faster when they settle on glaciers. According to the United Nations Environment Program, 10 to 40 percent of all global warming is caused by this black carbon. Hope on the Horizon Happily, change is under way. Solutions are being pushed as never before to ensure clean combustion, re- duce the consumption of wood and, ultimately, free women from the dangers of the hearth. Simple design changes have already produced bio- mass stoves with three to six times the efficiency of more traditional models, greatly reducing fuel costs. A recent F O C U S The World Health Organization estimates that household exposure to these particles causes 1.6 million premature deaths per year, predominantly among women and children. Satinder Bindra, the director of communications for the United Nations Environment Program, is based in Nairobi. Prior to joining UNEP, he was a senior international cor- respondent and South Asia bureau chief for Cable News Network for nearly nine years.