Columnists

Clean household energy a priority for healthy society

nu

A KPLC technician working on a transmission line. FILE PHOTO | NMG

I read with great interest a recent article by Health secretary Sicily Kariuki and World Health Organisation representative to Kenya Rudolf Eggers on April 17.

It is indeed laudable that the ministry is focused on and committed to knocking down communicable diseases given the significant contribution of these in achieving Kenya’s universal health care in the next five years.

To complement the efforts outlined by the Health ministry in the aforementioned article, the government must incorporate and implement strategies to prevent non-communicable diseases, key amongst these being classified as acute lower respiratory disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, some cancers and eye diseases. Results of a 2016 study that was carried out in one of the counties in Kenya indicated that 14,300 deaths occur annually as a result of diseases resulting from indoor pollution. Further, a clinical study that was carried out in Malawi indicated that improved or clean cook stoves do not prevent child mortality resultant from diseases related to indoor pollution.

Unfortunately, even with the above unfolding facts, there is hardly any attention given to the close relationship between indoor pollution and child mortality as well as low birth weight in Kenya. Worse, a United Nations backed project to get 100 million clean cook stoves into homes, including those in Kenya, is still going on, yet it is now clear that clean cook stoves should go with clean and modern cooking energy if the objective is to eliminate indoor pollution which has been confirmed to be one of the leading causes of cancer, pneumonia, respiratory and eye diseases.

Apart from solid cooking fuels’ contribution to non-communicable disease, Kenya’s natural forest cover has been stripped due to the unsustainable over-reliance on wood fuel as a source of primary energy. Deforestation has caused climate change, food insecurity and poses malnutrition risks which will no doubt lead to preventable illness especially in children.

The panacea for elimination of indoor pollution is the deliberate switch from solid cooking fuels to clean cooking fuels. Indeed, the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Number 7 calls for governments to ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy and to paraphrase from a speech delivered by the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Sustainable Energy for All at last year’s Global Alliance for Clean Cook Stoves Conference, Clean cooking is the golden thread that rounds up multiple SDGs; - health, education, environmental protection.

It may be useful for the Ministry of Mining and Petroleum to create awareness in especially Ministries of Environment & Forestry, Health, Education, Science & Technology and National Treasury on the available clean cooking fuel solutions that, if accessible and affordable, will resolve the country’s problems of disease, death, deforestation, food insecurity that emanate from cooking with charcoal, firewood and kerosene.

Each of these ministries along with the related regulatory agencies will then promote policies and laws that will ensure that clean cooking energy choices are available in every corner of the country.

As the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) moves to change zero-rating status of products under the VAT Act 2013, it is critical for KRA and the National Assembly to ensure that LPG is treated as a special product for the retention of zero-rated status given that the alternative cooking fuel for households who will no longer afford LPG if its reclassified to VAT exempt is charcoal, firewood and kerosene.