The Climate and Health Impacts of Cooking

According to new data developed by the Food and Agriculture Organization, with assistance from the Food Climate Partnership, the total emissions from household food consumption account for the equivalent of 1.3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide each year. That’s roughly 8% of the global food system’s total footprint — around 16 billion tonnes — which in turn accounts for nearly one-third of total greenhouse gas emissions.

Traditional fuels for household cooking and heating are also responsible for more than 50% of global black carbon emissions, a major indoor air pollutant and short-lived but powerful greenhouse gas. Direct emissions from various cooking systems and fuels, and indirect emissions caused by deforestation-linked biomass collection also add to the global carbon footprint of household food consumption.

These indirect emissions are difficult to quantify, since sustainable collection and combustion of biomass is sometimes considered carbon neutral over the long-term — burning plants and trees unlocks and releases carbon emissions roughly equivalent to how much carbon the plants originally removed from the atmosphere through photosynthesis. But where biomass collection exceeds the regrowth rate of the forest from which it was harvested, this upsets the balance between carbon sink and source and fuels deforestation and significant carbon emissions.

These significant health and climate impacts of household cooking help explain the motivation for countries like Tanzania, where only 5% of its population has access to cleaner cooking fuels and technologies, to come up with aggressive plans to phase out dirty cookstoves and fuels.

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