The IEA says sub-Saharan Africa is firmly on track to realise universal clean cooking fuelled by LPG, blazing an energy transition trail with global significance
Whisper it, but LPG may finally be about to play a major role in the first significant success story of the global energy transition — decades after the industry first began telling the world it was ready to do so. OECD energy watchdog the IEA believes that Africa is finally on the right path to achieving universal access to clean cooking by 2040, nearly two-thirds of which will be in the form of LPG use — bringing climate and social benefits on a scale yet to be seen anywhere else in the world since the race to net zero began in earnest.
Although the developed world continues to focus on big-ticket climate technologies — renewables, electric vehicles (EVs), hydrogen, green ammonia, even carbon capture — the IEA is attempting to bring more attention to lower-hanging fruit in developing states. Helped by an overarching shift at an international level from the aspirational to the pragmatic over the past couple of years, the agency is pushing the message that transitioning to clean cooking in sub-Saharan Africa is one example of a lower-cost, higher-impact solution.
The IEA has released a progress report and roadmap after launching its Clean Cooking in Africa summit in May 2024, in which it says simple policies, attainable fuels and comparatively low levels of investment and international collaboration can bring about major change. And although efforts to reach net zero in the global north stall, progress in the south is stepping up.
The inherent hypocrisy in a north-south divide when it comes to the global energy transition is again brought into focus, having been so artfully utilised as a tool in WePlanet's recent "Just Stop Cooking" campaign launch. The "carbon colonialism" of the global north asking those in acute poverty in the south who still use firewood, charcoal and dung for cooking to abandon fossil fuels they have yet to gain access to is an absurdity that is finally being understood at the highest levels. The upcoming G20 and Cop 30 summits look likely to prove this.
But although a swathe of new policies and investments in clean cooking since May 2024 is evidence of progress, and brings hope of attaining universal access in such a short timeframe, there is still plenty that needs to be done. Affordability remains the elephant in the room. You can provide as much LPG as you want to the people of sub-Saharan Africa — but they will never use it if it is too costly. The IEA finds that two-thirds of the population will need to spend more than 10pc of their income to gain access to clean cooking. This means public and private-sector support will need to be robust. And if nearly two-thirds of supply is to come from LPG, safeguards against future price and supply shocks will need to be established. Failure to do so could deepen inequalities between African countries and rural and urban populations within them. The focus needs to be not only on market expansion, but on equity-based policy making.
Hope springs
The fact that transitioning to LPG does not require new technologies or vast sums of investment could also be a weakness as well as a strength of the movement. The truth is that eradicating energy poverty in the global south lacks political capital in the north, while promises of 100pc EV transport, hydrogen economies or sustainable aviation fuel flights at home are an easier sell. Getting this higher up the international agenda has proved so challenging for so long because of the north-south divide and an obsession with new technologies and ditching all fossil fuels. Environmental groups other than those like WePlanet will still baulk at any public commitments for a finite fossil fuel, even if you can clearly demonstrate the ease and benefits of transitioning to LPG for clean cooking. But such issues are becoming better understood and the road ahead is, while undoubtedly challenging, looking more hopeful for sub-Saharan Africa — and as a result, the world.
