Cooking-energy transition in Nepal: trend review

Clean-cooking energy is key to meeting climate-mitigation goals and a range of development objectives, especially for improving the well-being of women and children. Inefficient burning of solid biomass for cooking releases household air pollution that is hazardous to health, while putting pressure on forest resources. This paper provides an overview of the household-cooking-energy transition in Nepal to date. Despite numerous efforts by the government and other actors to speed this transition, energy data spanning the years 2000–18 reveal that ~69% of households nationwide still rely on solid fuels for cooking today. The proportion of solid-fuel users is especially high in rural regions, reaching >80%. Moreover, if the current rate of progress is not accelerated, the use of solid fuels will remain high even in 2030, preventing the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 7. Cooking-fuel choices are heavily constrained by accessibility, demographic and socio-economic factors. Thus, this paper recommends that evidence-based and integrated policies and strategies be urgently deployed to foster a more effective and rapid transition towards clean energy, which is critical to achieving SDG 7.