Precious Anga
Nairobi — Kenya’s President William Ruto has called for clean cooking to be incorporated into the COP31 global electrification agenda, arguing that the expansion of electricity access should also drive the transition from polluting firewood and charcoal to electric cooking.
Ruto’s call was backed by Britain’s climate envoy as African countries seek to use the global push for electrification to address the continent’s persistent clean-cooking deficit.
The proposal comes ahead of COP31, scheduled for November, where Türkiye and Australia are seeking government commitments to increase electricity’s share of final global energy consumption to 35 per cent by 2035 and 50 per cent by 2050.
Electricity currently accounts for about 23 per cent of final energy consumption globally.
Ruto wants electric cooking to form part of that transition, linking increased electricity consumption with efforts to reduce dependence on traditional cooking fuels, particularly firewood and charcoal.
For Africa, the proposed linkage has implications beyond household energy use, as clean cooking sits at the intersection of electricity access, energy affordability, public health, deforestation and the development of modern energy infrastructure.
The push would require electricity systems to accommodate additional household demand from electric cooking, while ensuring that power is sufficiently reliable and affordable for consumers to switch away from traditional fuels.
The COP31 electrification initiative is therefore expected to focus not only on increasing electricity consumption but also on expanding the infrastructure and access required to make electrification meaningful for households and businesses.
Ruto’s intervention places clean cooking within that broader electricity transition, seeking to ensure that efforts to expand power use also reach one of Africa’s most persistent household energy challenges.
