Secretary of State Hilary Clinton urged India to rapidly adopt inexpensive, clean-burning cookstoves and said that two major Indian trade federations had agreed to help disseminate the technology throughout the country.
Clinton, who last year launched a $50 million U.S. program to expand clean cookstove technology in the developing world, said the stoves would significantly reduce the ill health effects from burning wood and other biomass and slash emissions of CO2 and other pollutants.
Cooking fires are blamed for causing 400,000 premature deaths in India each year, mostly of women, and of creating as much as one-quarter of India’s emissions of “black carbon,” which contributes to global warming and air pollution.
Clinton used her visit to a demonstration site for clean cookstoves to announce that two Indian trade federations would join in the effort to expand use of the stoves, which will be sold for as little as $10 to consumers through micro-lending programs.
Article appearing courtesy Yale Environment 360.
