PRESS CONFERENCE on who report ‘fuel for life:  household energy and health’

 

Although 4,000 people die every day because of indoor pollution caused by solid fuels, solutions to the problem are simple and economically beneficial, said representatives of the World Health Organization (WHO) this morning at a Headquarters press conference.

Carlos Corvalan, Coordinator of the WHO Department of Public Health and Environment, said the report “Fuel for Life:  Household Energy and Health” has been launched during the fourteenth session of the Commission on Sustainable Development to underline the message that the current energy crisis was translating into a major public health tragedy.  Half of the world’s population, some 3.2 billion people, relied on solid fuels, such as wood, dung and coal for cooking, boiling water and other basic energy needs.  That translated into 4,000 people dying every day, mostly women and children.  Eight hundred thousand children and 500,000 women were affected by indoor air pollution.

It was basically a problem of the poor, he said.  In poor countries, the highest income quintile used liquefied petroleum gas or electricity for their energy needs, while the lowest quintile used health-damaging solid fuels.  It was also a development problem.  Women wasted their time collecting wood; children were not going to school.  Addressing the problem was an enormous challenge.  In order to halve the people using solid fuels by 2015, 485,000 people every day had to be provided with cleaner fuels.  Even if that were to be achieved, 1.5 billion people would remain unserved.

Eva Rehfuess, report author, said the good news was that simple solutions were available.  In the short term, more efficient stoves could cut down indoor pollution levels.  Improving ventilation practices could help make the environment less smoky and healthier.  In the longer term, the use of cleaner cooking fuels, including liquefied petroleum gas, biogas, ethanol or plant oils, could essentially eradicate the indoor pollution problem.  Those changes would prevent death, improve children’s and women’s health, free up time, as well as reduce deforestation and greenhouse emissions.

Also, cleaner household energy practices resulted in real economic benefits, Ms. Rehfuess continued.  According to a WHO cost/benefit analysis, providing half the population currently using solid fuels with access to liquefied petroleum gas by 2015 would cost $13 billion a year, but would generate $91 billion yearly in economic returns:  a sevenfold return on the upfront investment.  Providing half that population with improved stoves would give an even better economic return.  Fuel cost savings would generate $34 billion yearly against the immediate cost of $2.5 billion.  Also, there would be an additional yearly benefit of $105 billion due to health benefits and productivity gains.

Most of the $13 billion required investment costs would be borne at the household levels, she said, but some initial public sector investment was needed to overcome the barriers in the beginning, to catalyse the process.  Investments were needed in raising awareness, research and design, and microcredit systems.  “Such public sector investment requires real political commitment.  And this is where CSD-14 [fourteenth session of Commission on Sustainable Development] can make a real difference”, she said in conclusion.

Commenting on a correspondent’s observation that in some refugee camps in Nepal people had rejected solar stoves, Ms. Rehfuess said that solutions offered must meet people’s needs as well as or better than the old technology.  Solar cookers could never replace all fuels, as they could only be used in certain areas and during times of solar radiation.  Solar cooking could only replace 40 per cent of household energy requirements in settings benefiting from solar radiance.

Answering another question, she said kerosene was widely used primarily in Asian and African urban settings.  From an indoor pollution point of view, it was a clean fuel, but it did come with additional health risks, such as poisoning.  Often, the fuel was stored in soft drink bottles, and children would drink it.  People should, in the short term, pick from among the range of options the one that best fit their needs, which might not be the best solution from a health or environment perspective.  Hopefully, in the longer term, people could be “moved up on the energy ladder” so that they gradually adopted cleaner, more efficient and more convenient fuels.

Mr. Corvalan added that a lot of work also needed to be done in teaching people about safety measures they could take for the safety of babies and children.  The WHO provided technologies that people were not used to and could, therefore, not expect them to be adopted immediately.  Technologies should be developed with the communities and, at the same time, awareness should be raised for acceptance of different technologies.

Asked about indoor air pollution in the United Nations Headquarters building, Mr. Corvalan said that work on indoor pollution had been divided between the problems of modern society, such as “sick building syndrome”, and problems of neglected communities.  The report was concerned about the millions of people that were dying for “something as simple as turning on a fire to cook a meal”.

In the context of the Commission on Sustainable Development process, WHO had only addressed issues of indoor fuels used by half the world’s population, Ms. Rehfuess responded to another question.  It had not looked into issues of multiple chemical sensitivity.  The pollutants of most concern were small particles that penetrated deep into the lungs.  Those particles caused some 1.5 million deaths a year.  Health outcomes of concern were pneumonia among children and chronic respiratory diseases among women, such as chronic bronchitis and chronic emphysema.

The wide difference in the amount of solid fuels used in neighbouring countries in Central Asia could be explained by the fact that some countries had access to oil and others not, Ms. Rehfuess said to another question.  Data were collected from national surveys and sub-Saharan African countries and countries in South-East Asia were most affected by the use of solid fuels.  Most of that fuel was biomass, such as wood, or even simpler and more polluting fuels, such as crop-waste, dung and sometimes even plastic.  Overall, there was a strong correlation between being poor and having to use inefficient, polluting fuels.  The list of pollutants from those fuels was similar to the pollutants in tobacco smoke, minus the nicotine.

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