A campaign designed to tackle harmful kitchen smoke from people cooking in the developing world on open fires and traditional wood-burning stoves has been launched by the Shell Foundation.
New stoves at work
The ‘Room to Breathe’ campaign aims to save lives, improve livelihoods and reduce climate change emissions by tackling so-called Indoor Air Pollution (IAP).
Every 20 seconds someone in the developing world dies from illnesses linked to IAP. With the World Health Organisation estimating that half the world’s population still cook using wood, dung and other biomass, there is also a growing link between IAP and climate change.
“Women should not be dying as a result of cooking meals for their families,” says Simon Bishop, Head of Policy and Communications at the Shell Foundation. “The problem is that when you go to an IAP-affected village in India and say ‘there is this thing called IAP’ it is like turning up in 1984 and saying ‘there is this thing called AIDS’. People have almost no awareness about either the issue – or the potential solutions. That is why we need this campaign.”
Room to Breathe is part of the Foundation’s wider Breathing Space programme, which has been tackling IAP since 2002. Its focus in on promoting ‘the’ internationally-recognised most effective way to tackle IAP – so-called ‘improved cook stoves’, ones that significantly reduce emissions and fuel use.
Click here to see pictures of the campaign in action in southern India: http://www.flickr.com/photos/43737958@N02/
It was also featured recently on the flagship U.S. current affairs programme PBS Newshour with Jim Lehrer:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/environment/july-dec09/india_12-17.html
