Nigeria and the other countries of the world are now facing the urgent requirement to implement clean cooking solutions or render a loss of around $2.4 trillion yearly and fatalities of at least 4 million people annually, says the oil and gas sector experts.
Experts at the ARDA (African Refiners and Distributors Association), CITAC Africa, CCA (Clean Cooking Alliance), GLPGP (Global LPG Partnership), and other energy players were not pleased with the level of LPG penetration in Africa. However, countries like Kenya, Tanzania, and Nigeria have noted a substantially increased penetration.
Simba Mudimbu, part of the Clean Cooking Alliance, assembled at the ARDA’s 2nd annual remote LPG, notified that clean cooking has been the most underinvested environmental and health problem globally.
Simba also noted that although the consumption of LPG is increasing across Africa, the adoption rate for the same is low as over 60% of urban Africans live in informal locations, and many cannot afford the upfront cost of cooking gas.
Mudimbu, while speaking about the last mile LPG distribution models revolutionizing clean cooking access, said that weaker distribution networks, especially in the rural areas, contribute to very little penetration in such communities.
Around four billion people worldwide are staying without access to LPG. In addition, $2.4 trillion is lost per year due to the dearth of clean cooking as four million people die every year because of the same reason, while 120 Mt of climate pollutants is recorded every year. This change is resulting in increased carbon emissions by 10% annually.
Anibor Kragha, ARDA’s Executive Secretary, said that LPG is the fastest-growing petroleum product in the Sub-Saharan Africa and revealed that the LPG consumption per capital in Sub-Saharan Africa is the lowest globally.
Kragha, while emphasizing that the African governments and shareholders must look forward to sustainable ways of addressing the challenges, stated that although Sub-Saharan Africa accounted for around 14.4% of the world’s population, it consumes less than 1% of the global LPG.
Source Credit - https://businessday.ng/news/article/nigeria-others-losing-2-4trillion-to-lack-of-clean-cooking-energy-experts/