UAE and IRENA launch 'Beyond Food' initiative

The UAE and the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) have teamed up to launch a new joint initiative to provide low-resource communities worldwide with access to sustainable energy for cooking.

The partnership aims to expand and bring in more key actors working on this issue in the coming days.

Today, more than 2.6 billion people still rely on traditional fuels for their cooking needs.

Access to clean and affordable energy for cooking lags well behind the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 7 target of providing access to clean energy to all by 2030.

IRENA Director-General, Francesco La Camera, said, "Ensuring universal access to affordable modern energy for cooking is a major global challenge with current efforts lagging far behind the targets outlined in the global agenda for sustainable development by 2030. This partnership seeks to advance the financing needed to bolster the deployment of clean cooking solutions while putting the issue at the forefront of the global development agenda in this critical decade of action."

Delivering remarks at the launch event, Dr Nawal Al-Hosany, the UAE's Permanent Representative to IRENA, said, "It is alarming that globally nearly one out of every three people today still lack the resources or the infrastructure for a clean cooking environment, relying on cooking fuels like charcoal, wood, and kerosene.

"The consequences of this are two-fold: firstly, it creates and perpetuates unhealthy living environments, and secondly, it actually increases harmful carbon emissions."

Al-Hosany added that finding innovative ways to help people benefit from cleaner food systems, agriculture and livelihoods is essential to ensuring long-term sustainable human development. "And I'm delighted to see that, with the launch of the Beyond Food initiative, the UAE is working with its international partners to do exactly that."

Innovative solutions for electric cooking are increasingly viable and commercially beneficial alternatives. Yet, while higher investments flow towards renewable electricity projects, both on- and off-grid, the clean cooking sector attracts only a limited amount of international and local finance.

Reem bin Karam, Director of NAMA, said that nearly four million people a year die from illnesses linked to cooking with polluting fuels, and women are most affected, according to the World Health Organisation. The linkages between cooking, gender equality, health, the environment, and a changing climate cannot be denied or overlooked.

"Our participation in this initiative will ensure women are actively involved in the development of gender-sensitive strategies for cleaner and more efficient cooking technologies, but also in achieving the UN's goal of universal access to clean cooking by 2030.

"Without urgent action, the environmental, social, and health toll caused by household air pollution will continue to disproportionately affect women and children, who tend to gather the fuel and tend carbon-emitting stoves."

Empowering communities with cleaner cooking technologies and tools is also crucial to achieving many of the 17 SDGs. That includes reducing emissions from cooking to achieve greater health and well-being (SDG3), eradicating energy poverty and ensuring sustainable energy security for billions of people (SDG7) and slashing the 25 per cent of black carbon emissions that come from current methods of cooking to help accelerate climate action (SDG13), among others.

Also speaking at the event via a virtual address, Damilola Ogunbiyi, CEO of Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL) and the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Sustainable Energy for All, said, "Estimated financial losses worldwide form the use of traditional fuel for cooking are approximately $2.4 trillion (AED 8.8 trillion), accounting for an adverse impact on health, loss of productivity and damage to the environment.

"Addressing the clean cooking challenge head-on will result in a range of cost-cutting benefits in gender equality, climate action and improved health and well-being. Clean cooking solutions also present a significant opportunity for economic growth through job creation. Women, in particular, are a key stakeholder in this sector and stand to gain massively from access to better, cleaner cooking solutions. Therefore, we must continue to work together to prioritize clean cooking in national policy agendas."

Beyond Food was launched during IRENA's 7th Renewables Talks, held at Expo 2020 Dubai, which convened IRENA's Permanent Representatives (PRs) and ambassadors to discuss practical approaches to achieving enhanced clean cooking action.