Do ICS Contribute to Global Warming? Correlation Between ICS Usage and GHG Emissions

Abstract: Global warming is mainly the results of human activities on the environment. It is the leading cause of change in weather patterns. The activities are linked to different ways of generating and using energy. Researches have revealed that 80% of households in Sub-Sahara Africa use traditional wood fuel. This implies that chunks of trees are usually cut yearly to provide the fuel. It leads to greenhouse gas emissions and deforestation of up to 39 hectares per year. Unfortunately, the households have limited access to ICS.  The high costs of stoves, lack of government support and unwillingness to substitute traditional cooking practices with clean cooking methods limit the uptake of the improved stoves. This means that there is more use of biomass fuel, which highly increases GHG emission. For instance, each household is estimated to use approximately 4 bags of charcoal annually. The yearly charcoal demand for the entire continent is approximately 4 billion bags. To meet this demand, about 715 million trees have to be cut annually.

ICS present a promising solution for conserving trees. As per the terminal evaluation on the usage of the stoves, only 25% of the trees that are currently burned to produce charcoal will be required to meet the annual charcoal demand. The 537 million trees that shall be preserved will sequent 0.013425 GtCO₂ in a single year. Working towards Paris Agreement strategies on GHG emissions, ICS usage in Africa will therefore enable CDR up to 5.034% within a 25-year period. To achieve this, strategies aimed at increasing adoption rate should be implemented. If households outside Africa that are still using traditional stoves adopt ICS for cooking, we should expect even better and more promising changes. The GHG emissions will have to drop leading to a decrease in global warming.