dc.description.abstract | This thesis explores the potential for increased adoption of clean and sustainable domestic cooking
fuels in urban informal settlements to reduce pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. It also
highlights the impact of continued charcoal and kerosene fuels use in Kibera and the overall
implications to sustainable development frameworks such as the National Determined
Contributions and Sustainable Energy for All Action Agenda. In this regard, the thesis focuses on
assessing the potential and feasibility of using bioethanol fuels for domestic cooking to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions in Kibera, one of Nairobi’s largest urban informal settlements. Past
research often depicted economically marginalized households in informal settlements and in rural
areas as negligible contributors of greenhouse gas emissions, owing to their modest consumption
and dependence on wood fuels as the main source of household energy. This thesis challenges the
notion that the transition to clean and sustainable energy in urban informal settlements should not
be prioritized by policy makers. By applying a mixed-method approach, a series of qualitative and
quantitative results from 400 randomly-selected households in Kibera provide a framework for
understanding the core factors responsible for household cooking energy choice. Analysis of the
quantitative findings showed that charcoal and kerosene were the main cooking fuels available in
Kibera, used by 76% and 81% of surveyed households respectively, typically in combination with
each other. Only 10% of the surveyed households reported using bioethanol fuels for domestic
cooking. It was estimated that approximately 3,764.39 ( *+,- emissions will be generated
annually as a direct result of the combustion of the current mix of cooking fuels, on the other hand,
the study estimated that 98% of annual emissions from household cooking would be avoided if all
households in Kibera were to completely switch to bioethanol fuel as the only means of domestic
cooking. Analysis of qualitative information collected through triangulation of various information
collection strategies, including surveys, semi-structured interviews with key experts and targeted
focus groups, illuminated the key roles of the government and the private sector in reducing the
costs of bioethanol fuels and stoves making them affordable to Kibera families. By providing
empirical evidence, the study argues that greenhouse gas and black carbon emissions as a result of
reliance on unsustainable and heavily-polluting fuels for domestic cooking are not only negatively
impacting on the environment and human health but could also be dramatically reduced by
transitioning to simple, low-tech alternative cooking technologies such as bioethanol. In this
respect, the study concludes by providing specific policy and technology recommendations to
overcome key barriers of adoption of bioethanol fuels which are discussed at length in chapter 6. | en_US |