The politics of particles: Luxury vs survival
Chulhas – cookstoves of poor women who collect sticks, twigs and leaves to cook meals – are today at the centre of failing international action. Women are breathing toxic emissions from stoves and these emissions are also adding to the climate change burden of the world. The 2010 Global Burden of Disease Report established that indoor air pollution from cookstoves is a primary cause of disease and death in South Asia. As many as 1.04 million pre-mature deaths and 31.4 million disability adjusted life years (DALYs) – measure of years lost due to ill-health, disability or early death – are related to exposure to biomass burning in poorly ventilated homes. But what has spurred action is the science that there is a connection between local air and global air pollution. The particles formed during incomplete combustion – in diesel cars and cookstoves – are seen to be powerful “climate forcers” because they absorb light and convert it into heat. It is also found that these particles or aerosols interact with clouds and affect rain patterns. They also fall on snow or ice surfaces and make them melt faster.
Moreover, particulate matter or black carbon is short-lived. Its life span in the atmosphere is three to eight days, unlike carbon dioxide, which has a life span of 80 to 100 years. So, combating emissions brings quick results to an increasingly over-heated Planet, even though their impacts are more regional and local. The current negotiations on climate change are focused on these shortlived climate forcers (SLCF) as a way ahead.
This is not to say that science is completely agreed on the matter of how serious is the contribution of particulate or black carbon to global climate change. This is because there are good aerosols which cool the Planet because they reflect light, and bad aerosols that warm the Planet.
But what is emerging is that the good or bad could well depend on the source of pollution. While open burning or biomass burnt in cookstoves produces particles with a higher proportion of organic carbon that scatters sunlight, emissions from fossil fuels have a higher proportion of black carbon, which absorbs light and forces heating. Seen this way, use of low-sulfur diesel has the highest net positive radiative forcing – it warms, not cools.
Politics of particles, therefore, differentiates between survival emissions from the cookstoves of the poor and the luxury emissions of SUVs of the rich.
Unchanging scale and size: The world’s wicked problem
The fact is, however, that though many countries like India (and parts of China and Africa) may have modernised, the bulk of cooking in villages is still done using firewood and twigs.
Globally, it is estimated that 2.67 billion people still rely on biomass for cooking food, with 80 per cent of Sub-Saharan Africa and 66 per cent of Indians using this inefficient and polluting fuel. This adds up to roughly half the developing world and 40 per cent of the world. Even in 2030, the World Energy Outlook report estimates that 43 per cent of the developing world (33 per cent of the world’s people) will continue to cook on biomass. Even in fast growing China where 33 per cent use biomass, it is estimated that by 2030, 19 per cent will continue on this fuel. The report also points out that “there is evidence that where local prices have adjusted to recent international energy prices, the shift to cleaner, more efficient use of energy for cooking has actually slowed down or even reversed”. In India, Census 2011 shows that 75 per cent of rural households continue to use biomass and dung to cook, as against 21 per cent of urban Indian households. In addition, data from the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) on energy sources of Indian households for cooking and lighting reveals that nothing has changed in the past two decades. In 1993-94, as many as 78 per cent households in rural India used biomass as cooking fuel and in 2009-10, 76 per cent used this fuel.
Therefore, in this period, when urban India moved to LPG (from 30 per cent to 64 per cent), rural India remained where it was, cooking on highly inefficient and dirty stoves (see Graph: Energy sources of Indian households). There is a definite correlation between wealth, availability and methods of cooking. The same NSSO data shows that only in the highest (9th and 10th) class of monthly per capita expenditure does the household make the transition to LPG in rural India. In urban India, in contrast, even households in the lower level of monthly per capita expenditure use LPG. This is because LPG is subsidised and more available in urban areas. Therefore, it is poverty that is at the root of the chulha conundrum. This is where the climate change knots get entangled.
The fact is that LPG is a fossil fuel available in large parts of the world as a clean cooking medium. Advocating use of this fuel to meet the needs of poor women in vast parts of the world will only add to greenhouse gas emissions. The other problem is that any programme to reach the poor will necessarily require subsidy. The world frowns on subsidy for fossil fuel – which is partly why governments across the world are scrambling to remove subsidy from kerosene and even LPG. So, what is the way ahead?
Where has the firewood crisis gone?
In the 1970s-1980s it was widely said that the ‘other energy crisis’ is firewood for cooking as supply was short and women had to spend hours to walk for collecting this basic need. It was also said that this use of energy by the very poorest would devastate forests. In 1973, after the first oil shock, the government of India set up the Fuel Policy Committee, which noted that the widespread use of non-commercial sources of energy has led to “large-scale denudation and destruction of forests.” But there is little evidence that this has happened. Why?
Anil Agarwal, CSE’s founder, was always fascinated by household requirements for cooking energy – in the early 1980s he organised the country’s first conference on this issue. Writing in the First Citizens Report in 1982, he warned of impending firewood crisis as demand would outstrip supply. But he also said that there was little evidence to suggest “energy-gathering families of India were responsible for deforestation as then all trees should have disappeared by now.” The problem was not the energy needs of the poor, collected most often by women and children, as this depended on twigs and branches.
The “biggest threat to forests is because of commercialisation of firewood – growing use in urban areas.”2 Anil Agarwal asked this question once again in the late 1990s and found his earlier assessment was confirmed by developments over the two decades. By then, there was no apparent firewood crisis – this, when all evidence suggested that biomass use for cooking continued across the country. He analysed data from the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER), which showed that the firewood demand in urban areas had gone down, because of the switchover to commercial fuels like LPG and kerosene. At this time, subsidies made these two fuels cheaper than even firewood for urban areas, where they were available. The NCAER survey, published in 1995 – ironically, the last such countrywide assessment of cooking fuel consumption – compared its data with the previous survey done in 1978- 79. It found the following:
1. In 1992-93, total household energy consumption in rural India was 153.4 million tonne of coal replacement (mtcr) – coal replacement being the amount of firewood converted into the amount of coal that would be needed to replace one tonne of firewood. But of this, 30 per cent came from firewood twigs and another 32 per cent from firewood logs.
2. The share of cowdung and crop residue in the household energy basket had gone down in these two decades, but the total quantity had increased.
3. The total firewood – twigs and logs – used for household energy consumption was 130 million tonne, with a greater share coming from more superior quality woodfuel logs, and not leaves or twigs. But interestingly, even though the share of logs had increased, people were buying less.
Therefore, they were finding better quality wood to burn in cookstoves, which could be collected.
4. But this better quality log was not coming from forests. The survey found that between the two decades, the percentage of households collecting firewood from forests had halved. Instead, firewood was coming from farms and other lands.
Analysing data from other studies Anil Agarwal found that the other firewood crisis had been averted because people had gone in for tree plantation on private land and the use of exotic ‘weed’ trees like Prosopis juliflora. People were not dependent on forests for firewood need and therefore, large-scale forest destruction (as predicted in the 1970s and 1980s) had not happened. The 2011 State of Forest Report, published by the Forest Survey of India, corroborates this.
It estimates that in 2010 the total fuelwood used was 216 million tonne, but of this only 60 million tonne – or 27 per cent – came from forests. The rest came from private lands or wastelands.
Since the ‘90s, even fewer studies have been done on the firewood demand for household energy use. But what is emerging from the scattered and limited studies is that in many parts of the country people make rational and careful choices of multiple sources of cooking energy fuel. They use a combination of biomass, expensive and often unavailable LPG and even kerosene to cook depending on the food type and cost involved. But unfortunately, energy experts discount these non-commercial sources. So, little is known of their use and little can be then understood about the policy options that would work for this half of the world’s people. DOWN TO EARTH
Chulhas – cookstoves of poor women who collect sticks, twigs and leaves to cook meals – are today at the centre of failing international action. Women are breathing toxic emissions from stoves and these emissions are also adding to the climate change burden of the world. The 2010 Global Burden of Disease Report established that indoor air pollution from cookstoves is a primary cause of disease and death in South Asia. As many as 1.04 million pre-mature deaths and 31.4 million disability adjusted life years (DALYs) – measure of years lost due to ill-health, disability or early death – are related to exposure to biomass burning in poorly ventilated homes. But what has spurred action is the science that there is a connection between local air and global air pollution. The particles formed during incomplete combustion – in diesel cars and cookstoves – are seen to be powerful “climate forcers” because they absorb light and convert it into heat. It is also found that these particles or aerosols interact with clouds and affect rain patterns. They also fall on snow or ice surfaces and make them melt faster.
Moreover, particulate matter or black carbon is short-lived. Its life span in the atmosphere is three to eight days, unlike carbon dioxide, which has a life span of 80 to 100 years. So, combating emissions brings quick results to an increasingly over-heated Planet, even though their impacts are more regional and local. The current negotiations on climate change are focused on these shortlived climate forcers (SLCF) as a way ahead.
This is not to say that science is completely agreed on the matter of how serious is the contribution of particulate or black carbon to global climate change. This is because there are good aerosols which cool the Planet because they reflect light, and bad aerosols that warm the Planet.
But what is emerging is that the good or bad could well depend on the source of pollution. While open burning or biomass burnt in cookstoves produces particles with a higher proportion of organic carbon that scatters sunlight, emissions from fossil fuels have a higher proportion of black carbon, which absorbs light and forces heating. Seen this way, use of low-sulfur diesel has the highest net positive radiative forcing – it warms, not cools.
Politics of particles, therefore, differentiates between survival emissions from the cookstoves of the poor and the luxury emissions of SUVs of the rich.
Unchanging scale and size: The world’s wicked problem
The fact is, however, that though many countries like India (and parts of China and Africa) may have modernised, the bulk of cooking in villages is still done using firewood and twigs.
Globally, it is estimated that 2.67 billion people still rely on biomass for cooking food, with 80 per cent of Sub-Saharan Africa and 66 per cent of Indians using this inefficient and polluting fuel. This adds up to roughly half the developing world and 40 per cent of the world. Even in 2030, the World Energy Outlook report estimates that 43 per cent of the developing world (33 per cent of the world’s people) will continue to cook on biomass. Even in fast growing China where 33 per cent use biomass, it is estimated that by 2030, 19 per cent will continue on this fuel. The report also points out that “there is evidence that where local prices have adjusted to recent international energy prices, the shift to cleaner, more efficient use of energy for cooking has actually slowed down or even reversed”. In India, Census 2011 shows that 75 per cent of rural households continue to use biomass and dung to cook, as against 21 per cent of urban Indian households. In addition, data from the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) on energy sources of Indian households for cooking and lighting reveals that nothing has changed in the past two decades. In 1993-94, as many as 78 per cent households in rural India used biomass as cooking fuel and in 2009-10, 76 per cent used this fuel.
Therefore, in this period, when urban India moved to LPG (from 30 per cent to 64 per cent), rural India remained where it was, cooking on highly inefficient and dirty stoves (see Graph: Energy sources of Indian households). There is a definite correlation between wealth, availability and methods of cooking. The same NSSO data shows that only in the highest (9th and 10th) class of monthly per capita expenditure does the household make the transition to LPG in rural India. In urban India, in contrast, even households in the lower level of monthly per capita expenditure use LPG. This is because LPG is subsidised and more available in urban areas. Therefore, it is poverty that is at the root of the chulha conundrum. This is where the climate change knots get entangled.
The fact is that LPG is a fossil fuel available in large parts of the world as a clean cooking medium. Advocating use of this fuel to meet the needs of poor women in vast parts of the world will only add to greenhouse gas emissions. The other problem is that any programme to reach the poor will necessarily require subsidy. The world frowns on subsidy for fossil fuel – which is partly why governments across the world are scrambling to remove subsidy from kerosene and even LPG. So, what is the way ahead?
Where has the firewood crisis gone?
In the 1970s-1980s it was widely said that the ‘other energy crisis’ is firewood for cooking as supply was short and women had to spend hours to walk for collecting this basic need. It was also said that this use of energy by the very poorest would devastate forests. In 1973, after the first oil shock, the government of India set up the Fuel Policy Committee, which noted that the widespread use of non-commercial sources of energy has led to “large-scale denudation and destruction of forests.” But there is little evidence that this has happened. Why?
Anil Agarwal, CSE’s founder, was always fascinated by household requirements for cooking energy – in the early 1980s he organised the country’s first conference on this issue. Writing in the First Citizens Report in 1982, he warned of impending firewood crisis as demand would outstrip supply. But he also said that there was little evidence to suggest “energy-gathering families of India were responsible for deforestation as then all trees should have disappeared by now.” The problem was not the energy needs of the poor, collected most often by women and children, as this depended on twigs and branches.
The “biggest threat to forests is because of commercialisation of firewood – growing use in urban areas.”2 Anil Agarwal asked this question once again in the late 1990s and found his earlier assessment was confirmed by developments over the two decades. By then, there was no apparent firewood crisis – this, when all evidence suggested that biomass use for cooking continued across the country. He analysed data from the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER), which showed that the firewood demand in urban areas had gone down, because of the switchover to commercial fuels like LPG and kerosene. At this time, subsidies made these two fuels cheaper than even firewood for urban areas, where they were available. The NCAER survey, published in 1995 – ironically, the last such countrywide assessment of cooking fuel consumption – compared its data with the previous survey done in 1978- 79. It found the following:
1. In 1992-93, total household energy consumption in rural India was 153.4 million tonne of coal replacement (mtcr) – coal replacement being the amount of firewood converted into the amount of coal that would be needed to replace one tonne of firewood. But of this, 30 per cent came from firewood twigs and another 32 per cent from firewood logs.
2. The share of cowdung and crop residue in the household energy basket had gone down in these two decades, but the total quantity had increased.
3. The total firewood – twigs and logs – used for household energy consumption was 130 million tonne, with a greater share coming from more superior quality woodfuel logs, and not leaves or twigs. But interestingly, even though the share of logs had increased, people were buying less.
Therefore, they were finding better quality wood to burn in cookstoves, which could be collected.
4. But this better quality log was not coming from forests. The survey found that between the two decades, the percentage of households collecting firewood from forests had halved. Instead, firewood was coming from farms and other lands.
Analysing data from other studies Anil Agarwal found that the other firewood crisis had been averted because people had gone in for tree plantation on private land and the use of exotic ‘weed’ trees like Prosopis juliflora. People were not dependent on forests for firewood need and therefore, large-scale forest destruction (as predicted in the 1970s and 1980s) had not happened. The 2011 State of Forest Report, published by the Forest Survey of India, corroborates this.
It estimates that in 2010 the total fuelwood used was 216 million tonne, but of this only 60 million tonne – or 27 per cent – came from forests. The rest came from private lands or wastelands.
Since the ‘90s, even fewer studies have been done on the firewood demand for household energy use. But what is emerging from the scattered and limited studies is that in many parts of the country people make rational and careful choices of multiple sources of cooking energy fuel. They use a combination of biomass, expensive and often unavailable LPG and even kerosene to cook depending on the food type and cost involved. But unfortunately, energy experts discount these non-commercial sources. So, little is known of their use and little can be then understood about the policy options that would work for this half of the world’s people. DOWN TO EARTH