Solving the clean cooking conundrum in Africa: technology options in support of SDG7 and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change

We define and discuss the clean cooking conundrum in Africa, home to most of the world’s population still reliant on polluting and unsustainable cooking technologies. We explore the technology options that meet both the competing needs of various SDG7 targets on energy access, including clean cooking and the challenge of achieving net zero carbon development. In doing so, we discuss the ‘mutual neglect’1 in the political economy of clean cooking, looking for realistic pathways aligned with NDC policy and planning for the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. Case studies reveal the significance of unintended or indirect benefits from technological innovation and growth in unrelated markets, for example the emergence of highly efficient Electric Pressure Cookers (EPCs) and the cost reductions in batteries driven by growth in the global electric vehicle markets, both of which has been a boon to the electric cooking sector in Africa. For higher-level policy discourse, we consider the windows of opportunity to create, steer and expand markets in Modern Energy Cooking Services (MECS) and the longerterm consequences this will have in terms of socio-technical lock-in and path dependency of government ambitions and policy choices.