Latest / Saving the World From Bad Ideas / SPECIAL: Bad Idea #15 "Just Stop Cooking" with Patricia Nanteza

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SPECIAL: Bad Idea #15 "Just Stop Cooking" with Patricia Nanteza · Saving the World From Bad Ideas

0:00
Where is the electricity that you're talking about?
0:02
Very few people have access to electricity and those who have
0:06
access to it cannot afford to use it for cooking.
0:09
And I have had so many people tell us that we should use
0:11
solar. And I asked where are the solar
0:14
cookers? I have never seen one that is
0:16
used domestically. The one that I that I have seen
0:19
is steel and of concept and you need to put it in the direct
0:24
sun. So you need to wait until need
0:27
fit in the sun and then cook your food.
0:29
The very reason as to why we don't put our Chapel stoves
0:33
outside in the sun is now the very thing you're telling us to
0:36
do. 113 kilogram cylinder of LPG avoids the deforestation of 6
0:42
square meters of forest in Africa.
0:43
So 100 households switching to LPG saves a whole hectare of
0:47
forest, and if they manage to achieve the IEA target for clean
0:52
cooking globally, that could save 2,000,000 hectares of
0:55
forest per year. So even though it's a fossil
0:57
fuel, it could end up reducing emissions because so much such
1:00
high emissions already come from deforestation.
1:02
We have contributed almost nothing to global warming and
1:06
then you are telling us contribute the biggest to the
1:09
solution by stopping us from living our lives, just the
1:13
basics of our lives like cooking.
1:15
It does make me very angry and that is why we are calling upon
1:20
a World Bank. Welcome to saving the world from
1:24
bad ideas. I'm Mark Linus, and I've had a
1:26
few bad ideas in my time. I used to go out in the night
1:30
time to destroy GMO crops, and I also posed nuclear power.
1:33
But then when I looked at the science, I found I got it wrong.
1:36
Oops. I've learned the hard way that
1:38
none of us are right all the time.
1:39
So now I'm here to challenge the assumptions that we all too
1:42
often take for granted because the future depends on us getting
1:45
it right. Hello and welcome to another
1:47
episode of Saving the World from Bad Ideas.
1:51
I'm here with Patricia Nantesa, who's our Africa lead for We
1:55
Planet. Hello, Patricia, How are you
1:57
today? I'm well, Mark, how are you?
2:00
Were you just saying that you'd lost electricity or is it back
2:03
on now? No, we the power has been gone
2:06
for the entire day. It's coming to 5:00 PM in
2:10
Kampala and we haven't had power since 7:00 AM.
2:14
It's kind of relevant to the conversation we're about to have
2:16
because it's about, you know, that's about energy used in
2:19
Africa. But I'm just kind of, I'm kind
2:21
of intrigued, like, how do you, how do you get on with normal
2:24
life if you've got no power? And how?
2:26
How often does this happen? Well, recently it has been
2:28
happening a bit more frequently, maybe 4-4 days a week.
2:34
The power tends to go off especially during the day and
2:37
that night it's on and off. You can have it for an hour and
2:40
then it goes for 30 minutes. So I don't know why that is
2:43
happening and but I think it's really horrible for efficiency
2:48
during the day when people are at work.
2:50
And what generally happens is that then people stop working
2:55
and they sit, they sit by the roadside and chat until power
3:00
comes back. You go, you go maybe to to the
3:04
welder, you put in an order for Windows.
3:07
No, no, but we haven't had powers been on and off for the
3:10
last time one month or so. So your order will be delayed.
3:15
Of course the bigger corporate they have backup generators
3:18
which a general population doesn't have.
3:22
People like me who work from home, you have to ensure your
3:25
battery is fully charged. If it's not, you drop off during
3:30
the meeting or you stop working and you just wait.
3:33
So you're talking on a what Were you on a laptop or on a phone?
3:37
You've just charged the battery, so how long have you got here?
3:39
Yes, let me see. I have maybe 80% battery power.
3:45
OK. So hopefully we're good to
3:47
finish the podcast, but I think this is just a really, really
3:50
useful illustration of what the energy situation is like.
3:53
I mean, Uganda is not unusual, is it, for sub-Saharan Africa in
3:56
terms of having the electricity going out all the time?
3:58
No, I think we are quite representative.
4:01
This happens across Africa. So we want, I want to talk
4:07
because we're co-authors of a new We Planet report, which is
4:11
satirically titled Just Stop Cooking.
4:13
And we need to give the credit to that, to producer Rob, who
4:17
came up with that fantastic title.
4:19
Give us a wave, Rob. Thank you.
4:20
And but the I mean, but it's a dead, it's a deadly serious
4:24
message, isn't it? And the sort of, you know, this
4:27
podcast is about saving the world from bad ideas.
4:29
Obviously, it's a really, really bad idea that Africa should just
4:32
stop cooking. But tell us like where the idea
4:36
for this campaign came from and why it's such an important
4:38
message for people to hear right now.
4:40
OK. So the, the, the idea for this
4:42
campaign came from the fact that Africa, the lead, the second
4:47
leading cause of deforestation in Africa is cutting down, is
4:52
cutting down trees for charcoal. And so why, why we came up with
4:58
this idea is that then what while we're thinking about the
5:03
energy, the, the energy crisis, why is it that Africans cannot
5:07
use electricity? We went down, we went down.
5:10
Should I call it a rabbit hole? And it LED us down to at the
5:15
very basic of it, what is driving, what is driving climate
5:20
change? What is driving the energy
5:21
crisis? And how can we come up with a
5:24
more immediate, more practical solution to this?
5:29
So the conversation, the, the topic of conversation today is
5:35
energy security. If we want, if we want Africa to
5:39
stop, to stop, to stop cutting down our trees, that means we
5:45
must stop cooking. And then someone will say what,
5:49
what, what has, what has deforestation and cooking gotten
5:52
to do with each other? Like I've told you, we use
5:55
Chapo, we use our trees to cook. So if you tell us protect your
5:58
environment, you're basically telling us you should stop
6:01
cooking or move to electricity. And like we have, we have shared
6:06
at the beginning of this conversation, power is always on
6:09
and off. And I live in an urban area.
6:11
That is how that is why I have the luxury of having power on
6:15
and off. The majority of Africans, almost
6:18
80% of Africans do not even have access to electricity.
6:22
So then at the end of the day, when you, when you look at
6:26
everything all suddenly, if we have to protect our environment,
6:29
we must stop cooking or switch to electricity, which is
6:32
impractical right now. Yeah, the access, the access is
6:37
very, very limited. And those of us who have access,
6:41
it is intermittent, but it's also very expensive.
6:45
I would like, I would like to consider myself to be a middle
6:49
class African. And other than boiling water in
6:52
my kettle, I, I, I, I don't use electricity to cook.
6:57
If I found anyone trying to sneak anything cook on electric
7:02
on to look on electricity, I would lose it.
7:05
Are you the one who is going to pay the power?
7:07
Do you know what it costs? You know, that would be the
7:09
conversation that would ask you. So it's it's the
7:13
impracticability of us using electricity, which is cleaner,
7:18
or continue using the biomass fuels, which are not only bad
7:23
for our health but also bad for our environment, that brought us
7:26
to this satirical message of just stop cooking.
7:30
Either way, we are doomed. Electricity, We don't cook
7:34
because we can't afford it. You tell us to protect the
7:37
environment. Still we don't cook because we
7:40
protect the environment. We have no fuel.
7:43
Yeah, yeah. And so I was just reviewing some
7:45
of the stats for this. I mean, it's really an
7:47
incredibly large death toll. It's one of the biggest sources
7:50
of mortality around the around the world.
7:53
Indoor air pollution caused largely by people cooking
7:57
inside, inside their houses using solid fuels, so using
8:00
charcoal and and wood in particular.
8:03
Again, according to the World Health Organization, it's the,
8:06
the total global death toll is 3.2 million people worldwide
8:10
each year, about 1/4 of a million of those deaths of
8:14
children under 5. In Africa, it's a billion people
8:17
cooking on wood and charcoal for their household fuels and the
8:22
resultant household air pollution from these fuels
8:25
causes 700,000 premature deaths. That's in sub-Saharan Africa and
8:29
that's 10% of total mortality, which makes indoor air pollution
8:32
a bigger killer than malaria. I mean, do you, do you see this
8:36
at first hand? So you know, if you're, if
8:38
you're travelling and you, you're in a village and you
8:40
know, can you, can you see children coughing?
8:43
Can you see respiratory disease? Can you actually see evidence of
8:46
this of of this health burden from from indoor air pollution?
8:50
Not, I would say you cannot necessarily say that that person
8:54
is suffering from indoor air pollution, but I have, I have
8:59
been around people who cook using firewood and it's
9:03
unacceptable practice that you must cough.
9:06
The smoke naturally makes you cough and you know, of course
9:10
you're tearing from your eyes. So you see that indeed there is
9:14
an effect of, of the smoke, but from, from a non, maybe a non
9:21
medical person, you may not realize that this actually is a
9:24
problem. However, we, I have heard of
9:29
people who have died because they locked themselves inside
9:33
their tiny room with a charcoal stove.
9:35
And it happened just very recently, maybe a month ago.
9:39
I I actually heard of a lady not very far from where I stay IA
9:43
woman and her, her little child, her child is maybe 2 years.
9:47
So the woman woke up early in the morning, 6:00 AM she walks
9:50
in the market and she pre she was preparing breakfast.
9:54
So she lit her chocolate stove and put on her her kettle to
9:58
make breakfast for her and her child.
10:00
And then she never woke up. How did I get to know?
10:03
Because I had sent someone to buy for me a bed in the market.
10:07
And when he got there, he told me, you know, everyone there is
10:10
fracas, people trying to break the door because this woman is
10:14
supposedly dead. And I asked, I asked him why?
10:17
So he told me it must be. It must be they suffocated
10:22
because there was no fire. Their house didn't catch fire.
10:25
But by around 8:30, the neighbors were like, no, this
10:29
woman usually leaves home very early.
10:32
Why isn't she coming out? And they broke her door, only to
10:35
find her and her little girl dead.
10:38
That's very tragic. You think it was smoke
10:40
inhalation or maybe carbon monoxide if, if it was poorly
10:44
ventilated. But I mean, this shows all of
10:46
the the dangers, I guess of, of relying on combustion inside,
10:50
inside the house. But describe so describe to us
10:53
like this is people, people around the world don't know what
10:56
it's like to cook in a village in Africa.
10:59
Can you describe to us, describe to us the scene like, what's the
11:02
average household doing to cook, to cook their food?
11:04
OK, let me describe 2 scenes because what you call a village,
11:08
let me call it a rural area and then an an urban or a very urban
11:12
area. So in in a rural area, people
11:15
usually use firewood. So you get 3 three stones so
11:21
that you know to to create to create a stove.
11:24
And then you just place firewood sticks in between the stones and
11:29
you light your fire and you place your saucepan on it and
11:34
you light, you light the fire whenever you need, whenever you
11:38
need to cook something. The thing about charcoal is that
11:41
charcoal eventually breaks down into pieces of sorry, firewood
11:46
eventually breaks down into pieces of charcoal.
11:48
So in the village, they cover that with ash, the ash that came
11:52
from the burning process. So that maybe when you cook at
11:57
around midday and then you want to cook something again at 6:00
12:00
PM, you don't have to start the fire again.
12:03
You, you just remove the ash, put new, put, put grass to light
12:08
up the fire and then put more, put more firewood.
12:10
And then you have your evening meal.
12:12
So that is, that is what happens in rural areas.
12:16
But then you'll ask where does the firewood come from?
12:19
Of course, this is a job for mainly women and children.
12:24
When they go to the well to fetch water, usually they come
12:28
back with a bundle of firewood that they will use for that day.
12:32
So firewood is a fetching firewood is a daily chore like
12:37
fetching water or cooking. So that is what happens in a
12:42
rural area, in urban areas where we don't have access to a lot of
12:47
access to firewood because firewood is also is also it has
12:53
a lot of, it has a lot of smoke. You need a bigger, you need a
12:56
wider area where you can from. So in urban areas we use
13:01
charcoal, which now is a byproduct of by or burning
13:06
firewood. And so in urban areas, we have
13:09
these little Chapel stoves that you usually keep in the corner
13:13
of of your house or in the corner of your kitchen.
13:16
You light it whenever you need to cook a meal or it is a bit
13:20
faster. You, you can light it using
13:24
anything you can. You, you can light it using
13:25
paraffin. You can use light it using
13:29
pieces of wood or paper. So you light it, it catches
13:32
fire, you cook whatever it is that you're cooking and then
13:36
pour water on the charcoal and wait until later again when you
13:40
need, when you need to cook, and repeat the process.
13:44
Why can't people just cook outside the houses on these 3
13:46
stones? I mean, that would be, you know,
13:50
you wouldn't have to inhale the smoke if you're not cooking it
13:52
inside your house, Inside your house.
13:54
I think basically people don't cook, don't cook outside for so
13:58
many reasons. One of the reasons is definitely
14:00
the elements. You cannot cook in the noonday
14:03
sun. It's very hot.
14:06
And then in the evenings, of course it's dark or it's
14:09
raining. And most houses do not have, do
14:13
not have a designated area that is a kitchen with a chimney.
14:18
So what people usually do is because you want to cook away
14:21
from the elements to carry your Chaco stove and put it in a
14:24
corner somewhere in the room where you stay.
14:28
But of course, there are also those, there are those urban,
14:32
urban houses that have a tiny kitchen where people now can put
14:38
their Chaco stove. Because also you need to realize
14:41
that the majority of people in urban areas, especially those in
14:46
the informal sector, can afford to rent maybe just A room or a
14:51
house that has only a bedroom and a sitting room.
14:54
So everything must happen in the sitting room, your kitchen, your
14:58
dining, you know, life happens there.
15:01
So it's basically a lack of space and not being able to cook
15:05
from the elements. Right.
15:07
And in the, so in the rural area, women and children mainly
15:10
have to go and fetch their own firewood.
15:12
Presumably people are chopping trees, chopping limbs off trees
15:15
and to, you know, to, to get the wood supplies.
15:19
What about charcoal? And what's the sort of, what's
15:21
the supply chain? Because when I've, I've
15:22
travelled through Africa, I've seen these big white sacks
15:25
stacked up by the roadside, all full of charcoal.
15:27
So there's people who are clearly selling that
15:28
commercially and that's going into urban areas.
15:31
Is that right? The charcoal value chain starts,
15:34
of course, from the rural areas where someone, usually a man,
15:38
will cut down a tree. That tree can be their own, or
15:43
you can go and actually buy a tree from someone.
15:47
You, you cut it down, cut it into pieces, and then build some
15:53
sort of like, should I call it like a tunnel, a kiln maybe?
15:57
I don't know what to call it. Put the huge pieces of wood, the
16:01
logs, the huge logs in there. Cover it with mud and then set
16:05
it on slow on slow fire. And then the firewood breaks
16:10
down into charcoal. But maybe just to mention that
16:15
it's mature trees that actually make the best charcoal because
16:18
then it's harder. It lights for a longer time.
16:22
You cannot cut down trees that are maybe 5-5 years or younger.
16:27
It needs to be fairly mature trees 7 and above.
16:30
The older the tree the the better the the quality of the
16:34
charcoal. So you burn it down and then you
16:38
sell it, usually people you you. Usually there is someone who
16:43
walks around and who goes around villages and buys now the
16:48
charcoal and then that person sells it to the transporter.
16:53
There are 11 people in the entire charcoal value chain,
16:57
from the guy who cuts down the tree up to the lady or the man
17:02
who sells it in the market. So it is transported from
17:06
wherever it was burnt, brought into urban areas.
17:09
And then in urban areas there are two kinds of consumers, the
17:13
consumer that can afford a big sack, the a big sack of charcoal
17:19
in Uganda currently. And by big sack, you know, we
17:22
don't buy things in kilograms. So I don't know.
17:25
But the things that you've talked about, mark the white
17:28
sacks with the charcoal, you know, popping up about probably.
17:33
About 2025 kilograms I'd say. Yeah, maybe.
17:37
It goes for about maybe $40. That big suck.
17:41
That's valuable. Yeah.
17:42
That's valuable stuff that must be a big source of income to
17:44
people. I mean, that's presumably why
17:46
there's such high rates of illegal deforest, illegal
17:50
charcoal even in like, nationally protected forests,
17:52
right? There seems to be a big problem
17:54
with deforestation caused by charcoal burning.
17:58
That's. I mean, is there a whole sort of
18:00
criminal enterprise which is supplying this charcoal?
18:02
How does that work? Yes, absolutely.
18:06
The, the there is a lot of criminal enterprises, especially
18:10
in the recent past where countries have been making
18:13
charcoal illegal. So, so definitely the, the
18:17
charcoal trade now goes underground.
18:20
It goes underground still still everyone in the in, in the
18:24
entire value chain now has to operate on the black market.
18:27
The person cutting down the trees that transporters and you
18:31
see from from transporting in the rural area to the, to the
18:35
marketplace, of course they are, they're officials, the the law
18:39
enforcement officers, those ones must also be bribed.
18:43
And the destination of Chapel is not always national or only
18:48
national. We actually export Chapel to
18:50
Kenya, Uganda exports Chapel to Kenya, Uganda exports Chapel to
18:55
to South Sudan. So there is also an
18:57
international aspect. You said the governments, the
19:01
national governments actually are trying to ban charcoal.
19:03
So it's already official government policy in in several
19:06
African countries. Is it to, to try to suppress the
19:08
charcoal trade for for what reason?
19:10
Is it because of the the pollution issue or the
19:12
deforestation issue or all of these things?
19:14
No, it's it's purely deforestation.
19:17
The rate of Twitter, the rate of Twitter forests were
19:20
disappearing because of our Japanese was high.
19:23
And then the government, governments have moved into to
19:26
make it illegal. Of course there's no point you
19:29
know make if you make it illegal, it just goes
19:31
underground unless you've got an alternative.
19:33
So what is the alternative to to fuel wood and charcoal for for
19:37
domestic cooking in in sub-Saharan Africa?
19:39
What's the best alternative? The best alternative would be
19:43
what we call LPG, liquefied petroleum gas, which is cooking
19:47
gas in the in the interim, because it has very similar
19:53
characteristics to charcoal minus it being a pollutant.
19:57
It's, it's affordable. You can buy it in, in, in small
20:01
chunks. Before, before we, before we
20:04
came to the alternative, I was telling you that there are two,
20:07
two kinds of charcoal consumers, the consumer that buys the big
20:10
sack. And then there is the consumer
20:13
that buys charcoal every single day because it's also sold in
20:16
very tiny, very tiny sizes. And that is the commonest
20:21
consumer. You go every day to the market,
20:23
you buy a little, use it for that day and then wait for
20:26
tomorrow because. Because the biggest bulk of our
20:30
population is in the informal sector and they earn money every
20:34
day. So that is why LPG now is the
20:38
second best alternative. Because you can, you can buy,
20:44
you can buy a small cylinder. LPG is mainly sold in six 6
20:49
kilogram and 12 kilogram cylinders and of course the
20:53
bigger ones that are industrial. So you can, you can buy small
20:57
cylinders which require small amounts of money, carry it into
21:01
your home, use it, and when it's finished, you go back and by
21:04
that time you've stepped up a little money from your informal
21:07
job, buy another small cylinder. Yeah.
21:11
So LPG is the next best alternative.
21:15
And so this gets to the heart of our campaign because we need to
21:20
see African governments able to support the further roll out of
21:25
LPG for cooking in sub-Saharan Africa in order to avoid
21:29
deforestation and to avoid all of these hundreds of thousands
21:32
of deaths from indoor air pollution.
21:33
And yet the World Bank is not able to support this because it
21:37
has this ban on fossil fuels. And, you know, the, the report
21:42
that we're launching shows really just how pernicious this
21:46
has been because you've had governments in Germany and
21:50
Norway, officially through their representatives in the World
21:53
Bank, telling the World Bank that they can't support fossil
21:55
fuels anywhere. That means you, they can't
21:58
support it in Africa and they can't support it even for the
22:00
purposes of cooking gas, which could save so many lives and,
22:03
you know, and keep the Africa's forest standing.
22:05
So it's a real, you know, it's, it's an incredible injustice
22:08
that we're trying to highlight here in the name of if climate
22:12
change because, you know, because of the fossil fuel
22:14
issue. So, so I think all we're asking
22:17
for right is for an, an exception to be made so that
22:21
people in Africa can, can cook using LPG.
22:24
Otherwise, the alternative is to ask Africans to just stop
22:27
cooking, which is the satirical video that I think you, you
22:31
yourself participated in the filming of that.
22:34
I mean, tell us, tell us what the, what the joke is there and
22:37
why, why that's actually kind of no joke at all to to people in
22:40
Africa. We talked at the beginning of
22:42
the conversation. You you have put a ban on on a
22:48
fuel that is most practical in our circumstances.
22:52
That global N is still in the world back Africa.
22:54
You cannot use LPG because it's a fossil fuel and we know the
22:59
effect of fossil fuel on climate change.
23:01
However, you're also telling us Africa, the the second leading
23:08
cause of deforestation on your continent, is cutting down trees
23:12
for charcoal you need to stalk. So you're saying do not use
23:16
charcoal, do not use LPG. And then we're asking what
23:20
exactly should we should we be using?
23:22
And you're telling us that the global N through the World Bank
23:27
is telling us with charcoal and LPG out of the way, we need you
23:31
to use electric power, we need you to use solar.
23:35
And we are also left in shock. Where is the electricity that
23:41
you're talking about? Very few people have access to
23:44
electricity and those who have the access to it cannot afford
23:47
to use it for cooking. And I have had so many people
23:51
tell us that we should use solar and I ask where are the solar
23:55
cookers? I have never seen one that is
23:57
used domestically. The one that I that that I have
24:00
seen is still under proof of concept and you need to put it
24:04
in the direct sun. So you need to wait until
24:07
midday, sit in the sun and then cook your food.
24:11
The very reason as to why we don't put our Chapel stoves
24:14
outside in the sun is now the very, is now the very thing
24:18
you're telling us to do that we should, you know, use solar,
24:21
cook stoves, sit out in the sun and use them.
24:24
And in any case, they're just still proof of concept.
24:26
So when you look at the entire ecosystem of of the fuels that
24:30
that that we are being given an option to use, the World Bank is
24:34
basically just telling us, I just just stop, just stop
24:38
cooking in the meantime until we sort out the solar cookers,
24:42
until we sort out electric penetration on the continent.
24:46
Yeah, because if you don't have electric grids, I mean, the
24:49
price of electricity is a problem, right?
24:51
The price differential is already too high.
24:53
Can, I mean could, could support from the World Bank make a
24:58
difference here, do you think and and be able to make LPG as
25:02
an alternative more accessible to people like throughout the
25:05
income distribution, so even the very poorest?
25:08
Absolutely, absolutely. How support from the World Bank
25:12
would help is that then it could help, it could, it could enable
25:16
our governments to give us subsidies.
25:18
So, so, so that the price of LPG goes down.
25:22
And this could be our government saying, you know, we are going
25:25
to take away value added tax on on the price of gas, make it
25:30
more, more accessible. These actually these programs do
25:34
exist. The Ugandan government was
25:37
running a program on subsidized LPGI think it's still ongoing.
25:42
It's funded by the FAO Food and Agriculture Organization.
25:47
But they said they are only this program is only available to
25:53
government teachers if you're a teacher and you work in a
25:58
government school. And they named, I think 4
26:01
districts in northern Uganda. So that is how limited it is.
26:05
It is being given to a very tiny section of society in a very
26:10
tiny part of the country. And why is this?
26:14
It's a funding issue. Now imagine if if a big lender
26:18
like World Bank would come on board and enable our governments
26:21
to subsidize LPG. Then this campaign can then be
26:25
rolled out in the entire country in on the entire continent.
26:29
So I was looking into why this de facto ban on on fossil fuels
26:35
seems to be so widely interpreted.
26:36
And, you know, all of the big green NGOs have been running
26:40
campaigns saying there shouldn't be any fossil gas investment in
26:43
Africa. They were demanding a couple of
26:47
years ago a commitment from the World Bank Group to end all
26:49
types of financial support for fossil fuels.
26:52
And this is the Sierra Club Friends of the Earth US and they
26:57
weren't making any and for they were saying they should.
26:59
And this is a direct quote ending all fossil fuel finance
27:02
in Africa. And so that's not making any
27:05
exception for cooking gas. It's not making any exception
27:08
for the fact that these electric grids don't exist and that
27:10
people have no also terms of other than to just stop cooking.
27:13
And, you know, to do this in the name of climate change seems, I
27:17
think to, to all of us to be a really horrible injustice given
27:23
the differential of historical responsibility.
27:25
I mean, who's who's used to climb the carbon budget entirely
27:28
here and taken us to this crisis point.
27:30
It's not. I mean, how, what, what, what
27:33
are the carbon historical carbon emissions of people in Uganda,
27:36
Barrick, like orders of magnitude less than those of the
27:39
global N. So you know, how how does it
27:41
feel to you to be told that you can't?
27:43
That fossil fuels aren't for you?
27:45
Because we in the global N have now used up the entire carbon
27:48
budget? Ordinarily it should get me
27:51
angry, but it doesn't because I'm aware of the fact that we
27:55
all speak from our own perspective.
27:58
The Sierra Club, I don't know where they are headquartered,
28:01
but they sit in their offices and they look at their lives in
28:05
the US and they, you know, they say they, they, that they can't
28:12
afford to use electricity to wash their clothes, to cook
28:15
their food and, you know, run all the video games for their
28:18
children. And then they imagine that the
28:21
rest of the world is like this. So before I even talk about how
28:27
I feel, I, I would very much usually like to recommend to
28:33
people in the global N that before you speak for us, maybe
28:37
you need to take a trip down to Africa.
28:39
Just pick any African country because our situation is usually
28:45
the same and then see exactly what is happening.
28:49
While I was describing how cooking on a cooking on an open
28:53
fire firewood or charcoal, which you guys all BBQ, you know you
28:58
just BBQ. Use it over the weekend or
29:01
during summer. That is what we do every single
29:06
day of our lives. So it helps for you to
29:09
understand that this solution that I am that that that I am
29:13
recommending to these people, what exactly is happening in
29:16
their lives? What is their lived truth?
29:18
And then you can speak from from that point of view, but away
29:22
from speaking from people's lived experiences and
29:25
perspectives. Of course, it does make me very
29:27
angry, unlike so many other Africans, that we did not lead
29:31
our planet to the catastroph, to the catastrophic situation that
29:35
it is in right now in terms of climate change.
29:38
We have contributed almost nothing to global warming.
29:42
And then you are telling us contribute the biggest to the
29:46
solution by stopping us from living our lives, just the basis
29:50
of our lives, like, you know, like cooking.
29:54
So it's it, it does make me very angry.
29:57
And that is why we are calling upon the World Bank.
30:01
But we are also very aware that behind the World Bank that is
30:04
influencers that you talked about the the green NGOs
30:08
forcing, forcing solutions that would ideally be solutions for
30:12
the global N. I'm forcing the World Bank now
30:16
to to force those so-called solutions onto US in the global
30:21
South. So I'm very angry about that.
30:24
But another thing that also makes me extremely angry is that
30:28
the World Bank has primary data. They know what is happening in
30:33
Africa. When they are being forced by
30:35
these NGOs and people who've never been here, why on earth
30:39
don't they speak up? Why don't they say this is not
30:42
the reality in the global S? While we were writing this
30:46
report, we did quite a bit of research and we realized UNICEF,
30:52
World Health Organization, the world back, they're all very
30:57
aware of the challenges that I'm using biomass fuels is causing
31:01
to us health wise and, and, and in terms of the environment.
31:06
And they have recommended LPG as a transitional gas, but then
31:10
they don't go ahead to implement these things.
31:12
Then they don't go ahead to speak up and say that reality is
31:16
different. And I am wondering why, Why
31:19
don't they do this? Are they in, are they in this
31:22
business for indeed improving the quality of lives or making
31:26
their stakeholders happy? So for me, really my anger is
31:31
directed to the world back because they have the knowledge,
31:35
they have the data, Why do they refuse to act on it?
31:39
Well, I think, I think the reality is that the World Bank
31:42
shareholders haven't allowed them to to invest in this.
31:45
And that's, that's why in particular, the experts we spoke
31:48
to mentioned Germany and Norway. And that's, it's especially
31:52
ironic because Norway, of course, is itself a huge oil and
31:55
gas producer and its people have become incredibly, incredibly
31:59
rich and it has an enormous sovereign wealth fund worth
32:01
trillions. And they're telling the World
32:02
Bank to not offend, not invest in fossil fuels in, in the
32:05
global South and in Africa in particular, where it could save
32:07
so many lives. So it's, it's particularly, I
32:10
think you're being almost a bit too generous really to, to given
32:13
the levels of hypocrisy. And in fact, I looked, I did
32:16
some, did some figures on this to just see the amount that
32:21
Europe's actually spending itself on, on, on fossil fuels.
32:24
So the, you know, the whole of sub-saharan Africa's total LPG
32:29
use currently, right, equates to a single large LNG import
32:33
terminal in Europe. And there's several of these
32:36
being built. There's new ones in the
32:37
Netherlands. There's new ones in Germany,
32:39
right across Spain as well, right across Europe.
32:43
They're putting huge amounts of money, billions into new fossil
32:46
fuel capacity while telling the World Bank that people in Africa
32:50
can't have the these same levels of fossil fuels.
32:54
So it's, you know, yeah, Germany currently has so much LNG
32:59
capacity under construction. That's three times more than the
33:02
entire current LPG use of sub-Saharan Africa.
33:05
So that's actually a lot worse than just ignorance.
33:09
This is blatant hypocrisy. Absolutely.
33:12
I agree. And for you, you have sovereign
33:14
funding, so you can use your sovereign, sovereign funding to
33:18
do exactly what you're stopping us from doing.
33:21
So this also then I think it, it ties in well with the, with the
33:30
argument that Africans have had for a, for a very, a very long
33:33
time that the World Bank and you know, people in the global N
33:38
they really just want to keep us.
33:40
They just want to keep us in poverty.
33:42
Because then how would you explain the, the, the, the, the
33:46
basis of such demands, the basis of such bans?
33:49
If, if LPG, if gas is so horrible, why then do you
33:54
continue to build more gas terminals in your own countries
33:58
to ensure that your own people continue having access?
34:01
And for us, just because we're poor, you're telling us no, no,
34:04
no, you need to protect the environment first, then reduce,
34:09
reduce your own consumption, put a halt on, on new on new gas
34:14
terminals. And then you can come and preach
34:17
to us about about LPG and the like.
34:22
So indeed, this is extremely hypocritical and we are calling
34:27
out this hypocrisy and we're saying just just stop it
34:30
already. Yes.
34:33
And Germany of course lost its Russian gas supplies and that's
34:36
why they're building huge amounts of LNG import because of
34:40
course they don't want the lights to go out and they want
34:42
industry to keep going and they want German consumers to
34:44
continue to be able to cook their food when they do use gas.
34:47
So the IT is absolutely, as you say, one rule for the rich
34:50
countries and one rule for the poor.
34:52
And actually, again, just another figure here, like if
34:56
we're only calling for enough LPG for people in Africa to
35:00
everyone to have access to clean cooking facilities.
35:02
And according to the I IEA, the International Energy Agency,
35:06
that just means of three times increase in LPG.
35:09
And if so, if you give everyone, if you give all of access, if
35:12
you give all of sub-Saharan Africa access to clean cooking
35:14
with LPLPG, that means African emissions would total 1/4 of
35:20
Europe's emissions just from those new LNG terminals and
35:23
pipelines that are under construction.
35:25
So it's really tiny even even making the climate argument.
35:28
And we should probably explain here what the differences
35:30
between LNG and LPG. As you said at the beginning,
35:34
LPG liquefied petroleum gas, so that's butane and propane gases
35:38
which are produced as a byproduct of oil refining and
35:42
they go into little cylinders and they're very easy to move
35:44
around, which is why it's such a good alternative to charcoal and
35:47
fuel. What LNG is liquefied natural
35:49
gas which is transported on these gigantic, gigantic
35:53
tankers, which then has to be re re gasified to go into the
35:57
pipeline network. So that's not and that's mostly
35:59
methane. What's interesting is that
36:02
propane and butane are not considered actually not
36:05
greenhouse gases, whereas LNG is mostly methane and that actually
36:08
is a very powerful greenhouse gas as well as you know they're
36:12
all causing CO2 when they're burned.
36:14
So I appreciate this is a bit a bit confusing for people who end
36:19
up on LNG and LPG and so on. But the numbers that we present
36:23
in the report actually calculate the differences.
36:26
So we can actually compare and contrast and see that these
36:28
these numbers are pretty much the same.
36:30
Like just as I say, one, one of these big LPG terminals is
36:34
pretty much the whole of sub-saharan Africa's gas
36:36
consumption. It's a bit complicated, but you
36:38
know, in this report we work out the carbon budget so we can
36:41
actually compare like for like with LNG and LPG.
36:46
I did want to to talk a bit about the potential for LPG and
36:54
cooking gas to to reduce deforestation.
36:57
The industry actually says that 113 kilogram cylinder of LPG
37:02
avoids the deforestation of 6 square meters of forest in
37:05
Africa. So 100 households switching to
37:07
LPG saves a whole hectare of forest and if they manage to
37:11
achieve the IEA target for clean cooking globally, that could
37:14
save 2,000,000 hectares of forest per year.
37:17
So what's weird about all of this is that where the World
37:20
Bank saying to saying to you in Africa, you can't use LPG
37:25
because it's a fossil fuel. But actually it could be carbon
37:28
positive, this whole thing, because you'd be avoiding
37:31
avoiding deforestation, which also puts a lot of a lot of
37:33
carbon in the atmosphere. So even though it's a fossil
37:36
fuel, it could end up reducing emissions because so much such
37:40
high emissions already come from deforestation.
37:42
So, you know, it's a it could be a net win for the world.
37:45
It could save so many lives and it could also save the forest at
37:49
the same time as reducing reducing the climate change
37:53
problem. But because we've got this hang
37:55
up about fossil fuels and there not being any investment in it
37:57
and the World Bank's being prohibited to from from
38:00
investing it. So just to finish up, what are
38:03
we? What are you and we Plan Africa
38:05
calling for? We are calling for the lifting
38:07
of the ban on on, on financing fossil fuels, on financing LPG
38:13
by the World Bank. So we are telling the World Bank
38:16
remove the ban, support our governments through financing so
38:22
that they can then make LPG available to everyone on the
38:26
continent. And that way you will enable us
38:30
to move away from biomass fuels. The World Bank and the African
38:35
Development Bank have come up with a project called a Mission
38:38
300 where they, where they're saying they're going to move 300
38:41
million Africans of the 600 who are still in the dark onto the
38:46
electric grid by 2030. So while you are working on
38:51
that, in the meantime, enable us to move to LPG.
38:55
And then eventually when electric power because becomes
38:59
more accessible, available and affordable, we shall move on.
39:03
We are not asking the World Bank to, to, to, to subsidize LPG so
39:10
that we stay stuck at LPG. No, we, we, we want to use LPG
39:15
only as a transitional fuel, as a transitional source of energy,
39:21
as as infrastructure and everything else that is being
39:24
worked on and eventually move to the really clean sources of
39:30
sources of power. But there is the, there is a
39:33
hidden advantage there. Mark, before we finish that, I
39:35
would like to also highlight what's transitioning an entire
39:40
continent onto LPG will help in terms of demand is that then we
39:44
shall build a certain behaviour in our communities.
39:48
People will then realize that, oh, by the way, you can actually
39:52
cook using a cooker. And then when you ask these
39:57
people to move away from their gas cooker onto an electricity
40:02
cooker, it won't be very strange.
40:05
So there is a hidden advantage in moving people onto LPG
40:09
because then you're building a certain behavior, you're
40:13
building a certain convenience and.
40:16
Then eventually when we get to that point, we can actually
40:20
consume this electricity. We can use it to cook our food.
40:25
We can use it. It won't be strange when you
40:26
tell us you can cook, you can wash your clothes using
40:29
electricity, because then we have been exposed to the
40:33
different uses of of clean energy.
40:37
But that will not happen when you ask us to leap from from
40:40
firewood or charcoal to electricity.
40:43
We'll be fearful, like, OK, then how do I cook my food?
40:47
Will it be tasty? Yeah.
40:49
Things like that. Well, and, and the power's out
40:52
for you right now. How are you going to cook your
40:53
dinner tonight? And for your for your kids.
40:57
Charcoal I I I I I energy stick, I use, I use charcoal and I gas.
41:07
So you're using LPG? When you say gas, you mean LPG?
41:09
On I use. I use LPG for the quick things,
41:14
but for the for the slow cooking things like beans and beef.
41:19
Then we use charcoal, but just a little bit of it.
41:25
OK. So you're on your own transition
41:27
there to fully electrified cooking, are you?
41:29
Yes, absolutely. And I boil water with
41:32
electricity, the only thing that I can dare cook on electricity
41:37
for now. Yeah, I think I think that's
41:39
such an important point to end on because I think we all agree,
41:43
whether we're a big green NGO or German government or you know,
41:47
or an African consumer, that ultimately electricity is the
41:50
best, best fuel of all. It's completely clean in the
41:53
house. It can be generated completely
41:56
cleanly, whether it's solar, wind, nuclear, whatever.
42:00
And that's got to be the way to go.
42:02
But it's going to take time. You haven't got the grid
42:03
infrastructure. It's not there.
42:05
The powers are still going out, as we've seen, seen even
42:07
recording this podcast. And so people need to eat today,
42:12
they need to eat tomorrow, they need to eat next week, next
42:13
month. And that's that's not time for
42:16
this transition to happen. So that's why LPG is such an
42:19
important transition. Fuel out to 2030 and beyond when
42:22
Africa can be fully electrified. Yes, absolutely.
42:27
Well, thanks, thanks for joining us and best of luck with the
42:29
campaign. We're all, we're all working on
42:31
this together and hopefully the World Bank will change its mind
42:33
as it did on nuclear fairly recently and, and come in with a
42:38
strong program to support LPG because it's, it's vital to save
42:43
lives and to keep Africa's forest standing before it's too
42:45
late. So good luck, good luck with it.
42:47
And and thanks again for for joining us on saving the world
42:50
from bad ideas. Yeah, Thank you very much.
42:53
But as the World Bank thinks about it, I think at the back
42:57
end, like you mentioned that they are the World Bank
42:59
shareholders. I think these these green NGOs
43:03
should be educated about about the damage that they're causing
43:08
to about the damage that they're causing to Africa before they
43:11
make, before they make certain demands of the world back, they
43:15
should ensure that these demands are fair.
43:18
These demands are just. And I recommend to them that
43:21
they should go after their own governments and stop them from
43:25
building new LNG terminals, but then encourage the world back.
43:29
If they're reading this about, if they're reading this business
43:32
for fairness and justice, they should then actually come and
43:36
join us on this campaign and encourage the World Bank to
43:39
remove the ban so that justice can be served down here in the
43:43
Global South. Well said.
43:46
And if they don't have time to go and visit Africa and see it
43:48
at first hand, they can also read our report, which is
43:51
available on Just Stop cooking.org.
43:54
Isn't it producer Rob? Yeah, it's nodding.
43:56
And producer Rob did all of the wonderful layout and design.
44:00
And we've got a forward from the Darnay and state minister for
44:04
for climate change and sustainability, which is also
44:07
really, really critical to have an actual African government
44:10
weighing in behind this campaign and saying this is what we want
44:13
to see. So anyway, thanks.
44:14
Thanks again, Patricia and Antesa for joining us, and we'll
44:17
hope to see you again soon. Sure.
44:19
Thank you, Mark. Thanks so much for listening to
44:24
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44:28
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