Climate change, cook stoves, and coughs & colds: Evidence from rural Nepal on thinking global, and acting local

Improved cook stoves (ICS) are widely viewed as a relatively cheap and effective way to resolve a major public health problem: acute respiratory infections from indoor air pollution. It is no surprise therefore that South Asia, a hotspot for bio-mass burning, has witnessed concerted research supporting the design and promotion of ICS and ventilated kitchens. Much less is known about the co-benefits of ICS in terms of reduced fuelwood use, forest and biodiversity conservation, time savings for women and children, and regional climate benefits (because of reductions in short-lived greenhouse gases and black carbon). We address this gap by drawing on a pair of multi-disciplinary studies in the Syangja, Chitwan, and Rusuwa districts of Nepal in 2006 and use socio-economic surveys of approximately 1000 households and pollution monitoring to measure cooking technology, kitchen design, fuel type, fuelwood consumption, time allocation, particulate matter concentration, health conditions, medical costs, and socio-economic status. Statistical (paired) comparisons of households across districts differing in socio-demographic and eco-climatic dimensions show that ICS can reduce PM concentration (10-70%), acute respiratory illnesses (10-30%), medical costs (10-50%), cooking and collection time (20%), fuelwood consumption (25%) and GHG emissions (25%). These results are robust to econometric modeling (using instrumental variable methods) that account for omitted variable bias and endogenous household responses. If these impacts collectively imply high internal-rates-of-return on ICS use, why aren't more households adopting this technology? We find that credit and peer-pressure are key constraints, and that info-regulatory campaigns and micro-finance schemes under CDM hold tremendous promise.