One of the greatest injustices of our time is unfolding quietly in African kitchens. Every day, millions of Africans cook their meals using polluting fuels like wood, charcoal, and dung. These methods are not only inefficient but also deadly. According to the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) latest report, Universal Access to Clean Cooking in Africa, this silent crisis contributes to over 800,000 premature deaths annually, mostly among women and children. It traps millions in poverty, undermines gender equality, and accelerates deforestation and climate change.
The report rightly highlights that this crisis is solvable. With $37 billion over the next 15 years, or less than 0.1 percent of global energy spending, we could bring clean cooking solutions to every household in Africa by 2040. That investment would save 4.7 million lives, create nearly half a million jobs, and give women and girls back two hours a day for education, work, and rest.
But here’s the problem: while the roadmap is sound, the global response is not. Too often, clean cooking is treated as a side issue, or, worse, as a tool for carbon offsetting. We must stop pretending that carbon markets are a solution to Africa’s energy poverty. They are not.
Carbon markets allow polluters in the Global North to continue emitting greenhouse gases while paying for “offsets” in the Global South. Clean cooking projects are increasingly being packaged as offsets, sold to corporations and governments to greenwash their emissions. This is not climate justice, but climate colonialism.
Clean cooking should be pursued because it’s a human right, not because it generates carbon credits. When we tie essential services to volatile carbon markets, we risk undermining long-term progress. Prices fluctuate. Demand shifts. And communities are left vulnerable to the whims of global finance.
Moreover, carbon markets distort priorities. They incentivise projects that maximise carbon savings, not those that best serve African families. That means rural areas, where emissions reductions are harder to quantify, get left behind. It means technologies are chosen for their carbon accounting, not their cultural fit or affordability.
We’ve seen this play out before. In the past, carbon finance has funded cookstove projects that failed to deliver lasting change. Stoves were distributed without training, maintenance, or fuel access. Communities were treated as carbon sinks, not partners. We cannot repeat these mistakes.
Last year, the peer-reviewed journal Nature Sustainability published research showing that clean cookstove projects included within the researchers’ sample are overestimating their carbon removal benefits by almost 1,000 percent. In other words, the researchers suggested, cookstove projects are issuing far more carbon credits, each of which is meant to represent a tonne of carbon, than is justified by their real-world performance.
The IEA’s report suggests Africa could reach universal cleaner cooking within 15 years. It maps infrastructure and affordability down to the square kilometre and provides country-level strategies based on real-world conditions. It shows that with coordinated action in public investment, policy reform, and local manufacturing, we can build clean cooking systems that are resilient, equitable, and African-led.
But to do that, we must shift the narrative. Clean cooking is not a carbon offset. It’s a cornerstone of development and a foundation for health, gender equality, and climate resilience. And it deserves direct, sustained investment, not the crumbs of a broken carbon market.
South Africa’s G20 Presidency in 2025 is a chance to change course. We must push for a global finance deal that prioritises grants, concessional loans, and infrastructure support, not offsets. We must demand that climate finance flows to communities, not consultants. And we must ensure that African governments have the tools and autonomy to lead their own energy transitions.
Let’s be clear: Africa is not asking for handouts. We are asking for fairness. The technologies exist. The economics make sense. What’s missing is political will and a willingness to confront the false solutions that have dominated climate discourse for too long.
Carbon markets are not a substitute for real investment in African energy systems. They are not a path to justice. And they must not be allowed to define our future.
Clean cooking is a moral imperative, a strategic opportunity, and a test of whether the world is serious about climate justice. Let’s stop selling off our future for carbon credits and, instead, invest in solutions that serve people, not markets.
Source: Daily Nation
