Solar Cooking and the U N Sustainable Development Goals

In the year 2000 all 191 United Nations member states, and at least 22 international organizations, committed to help achieve the following Millennium Development Goals by 2015:

1. To eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

2. To achieve universal primary education

3. To promote gender equality and empower women

4. To reduce child mortality

5. To improve maternal health

6. To combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases

7. To ensure environmental sustainability

8. To develop a global partnership for development

Solar cooking measurably helped with each of these 8 goals.

In 2016 the United Nations adopted 17 Sustainable Development Goals replacing the Millennium Development Goals to be fulfilled by 2030.

During the next few blogs we will show how solar cooking will aid in the fulfillment of all of these 17 goals of the United Nations. The information is supplied by Solar Cookers International, found on the web at: solarcookers.org

The Role of Solar Thermal Cooking 

Goal 1: End poverty in all its forms everywhere

Access to free solar energy by ensuring appropriate solar technologies for the nearly 3 billion people who cook and make water safe to drink by burning combustibles in open fires will help end energy poverty. Up to 40% of the household energy budget is used for heating water. Reducing the amount of gathered biomass and purchased energy with free, zero-emission solar thermal energy builds resilience, particularly for the poor and those in vulnerable situations. Because energy access for all is key to development, policies that encourage innovation in solar technologies will help end poverty, in all its forms, everywhere.

Goal 2: End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture

Nutritious foods, such as pulses and legumes, require large amounts of scarce or expensive biomass or fossil fuels to cook. With free solar thermal energy for cooking, families can continue to cook highly nutritious foods, ending malnutrition. Because all traditional foods can be cooked in solar thermal cookers, they build resilience for extreme food price volatility. Because solar energy access reduces the demand for biomass and extracted fossil fuels, land, soil and water quality are improved.

Goal 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages

Women and their young children experience the highest exposure to household air pollution, the number one cause of disease: more than malaria, HIV/AIDS, and diarrheal disease. Solar thermal cookers reduce exposure to household air pollution that results in 7 million premature deaths annually, including 50% of deaths from pneumonia for children under age five. Because solar thermal cookers do not produce flames, risk of disfigurement or death by burns from cooking fires is greatly reduced, particularly for women and children.

We will continue with information from solarcookers.org in our next blog.