How use of Clean Fuel can Empower Women?

India ratified the Paris Agreement in 2016, one of the strongest proponents of living in harmony with nature and the environment. India committed to generating at least 40% of its electricity from non-fossil sources by 2030. Currently India accounts for 4.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Its efforts are key to achieving the goal of halting the effects of climate change by restricting the rise in global temperature to 2 degree Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

India’s increasing focus on expanding the use of clean energy is critical. What is clean Fuel - Natural Fuel (such as compressed natural gas or liquefied petroleum gas) or a blend (such as gasohol) used as a substitute for fossil fuels and which produces less pollution than the alternatives. Women play an important role as agents of change in the transition to cleaner, affordable and sustainable energy. There is a clear link between energy access and women’s economic empowerment and well-being.

In India, for example, women still spend time collecting fuel for cooking as part of their unpaid, unrecognized and unaccounted care work – work that restricts the opportunity for education, paid employment and economic advancement. Further, the use of biomass fuel causes severe and long-term health problems such as respiratory diseases. The lack of access to clean and affordable fuel also has a direct link to violence against women. In addition, reliance on wood disrupts natural resilience buffers and produces vulnerabilities and even accelerates climate change.

Improving access would reduce the drudgery of women’s unpaid and care work, enable them to access education and employment options and enhance their livelihoods. Clean fuels could help eliminate the hazards of indoor air pollution. Access to energy for women also results in positive gains for the ecosystem. For example, electrification of rural communities can result in a 9% point’s increase in female employment, and a staggering 23% increase in the profitability of rural women working outside the home.

Enabling women’s access to energy also results in improvements to their social conditions. Women invest 90% of their income back into their families and their welfare – which has a positive knock-on effect, with lasting effects for generations to come. Government’s Ujjwala Scheme, which provides LPG connections at reduced rates to women from BPL households, is a useful example. The scheme will be bolstered by public investment in clean energy, incentives such as subsidies and taxes and communities access to finance, awareness and education.