One of the steps to improving air quality and mitigating the health and environmental impacts of air pollution, especially from smoke, is reducing pollutants from industrial processes such as firewood, vehicles or other forms of biomass burning.
Firewood burning is a notable contributor to biomass pollution, as over 68.3 per cent of all households in Nigeria still depend on wood for cooking, while emissions from firewood represent about 55 million metric tonnes of CO2 and about 700,000 metric tonnes of harmful fine particulate matter (PM2.5) emissions.
While the World Health Organisation estimates that smoke from firewood leads to about 95,300 deaths annually in Nigeria, experts warn that open-fire cooking causes vision impairment and puts people at a higher risk of burn injuries.
Women and girls are said to be the worst affected, as they are often exposed to gender-based violence, snake bites and other physical injuries while gathering firewood from the bushes.
Wood for cooking, noted as a major driver of deforestation in Nigeria, contributes to the loss of nearly 400,000 hectares of forests annually and significantly adds to the global greenhouse gas emission crisis.
Research, however, shows that the solution to the firewood crisis is the enforcement of clean cooking methods, utilising emission control technologies that filter pollutants before they are released into the atmosphere and switching from high-polluting burners like coal to natural gas.
Recently, the federal government said it plans to reduce the pollution from firewood by providing biomass cookstoves for 7.3 million homes and ensuring that about 28.8 million households have access to cooking gas by 2030.
The Minister of Environment, Dr Iziaq Adekunle Salako, at a recent outing in Abuja, ‘hinted that the plan is part of efforts to assist the federal government in meeting its pledged Climate Change commitment to reduce Short-Lived Climate Pollutants, SLCP.
He claimed that the intervention would save over 30,000 lives per year, build a domestic clean cooking industry, create new jobs, reduce deforestation caused by the felling of trees and improve the lives of women and girls who are mostly exposed to cooking smoke.
But considering the Nigerian factor, experts said the clean cooking intervention can only come to fruition if a strong regulatory framework is applied in its implementation.
Luckily, the minister, Salako, announced at a recent fair that the Department of Climate Change under his ministry has constituted a National Implementation Committee to develop a comprehensive framework for a clean cook policy.
Dr Salako said: ”The National Clean Cooking Policy, when fully implemented, will improve public health by reducing risks associated with traditional cooking practices, enable environmental sustainability through the use of clean cooking technologies and solutions by reducing deforestation and GHG emissions, and enhance energy access and affordability while encouraging gender equality and empowerment for economic development.
“In addition, the policy is expected to drive investments into the sector, thus supporting the job creation agenda of the Federal Government of Nigeria.”
It remains to be seen how the government plans to execute the lofty project to ensure that deforestation and tree felling are controlled in Nigeria.
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