Shell Pledges $6 Million For Global Clean Stove Initiative

Royal Dutch Shell plc. (Shell) has announced a donation of $6 million to support a global initiative to prevent deaths and cut greenhouse gas emissions caused by the smoke from traditional cooking stoves.

“Indoor air pollution is one of the most significant energy poverty issues facing the developing world,” said Peter Voser, Chief Executive Officer of Royal Dutch Shell plc. “With three billion people worldwide using open fires or traditional stoves in their homes, this initiative is a step forward in making a huge and tangible difference to their health and environment. So I would urge others to support this initiative – a clean burning cooking stove for each home isn’t that much to ask.”

Shell’s donation, staged over three years, will be the largest private contribution backing the work of the newly launched Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves (GACC), a public-private initiative to support the large-scale use of clean burning domestic stoves in developing countries. Launched by US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton at the Clinton Global Initiative meeting, GACC aims for an additional 100 million homes, roughly 20% of the affected population, to have an efficient cooking stove by 2020. The annual CO2 reduction for each energy-efficient stove is approximately 1.5 tonnes, so the cumulative effect of 100 million new stoves would be approximately 150 million tonnes of CO2 a year.

Manufacturers of clean stoves currently face difficulties getting their products to the people who need them, and with no internationally recognised global standards, more needs to be done to let people and communities know about the dangers they are facing.

Shell’s commitment will be tackling these problems, specifically by:

• Helping to develop global standards and stove testing protocols, to ensure customers get a quality product that has been approved and tested on the ground in each local market;

• Enhancing routes to market, tackling the issues of affordability and accessibility;

• Assisting with development of innovative financing mechanisms that would enable manufacturers to potentially benefit from carbon-credits, and;

• Raising awareness of the health and environmental risks caused by the smoke from inefficient cooking stoves.

Read Press Release: Shell cooks up cleaner future with $6m donation for global clean stove initiative
Photo Courtesy: Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves