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OK, let's get real

A serious injustice is being done to Africa in the name of climate change.
Hundreds of thousands die each year because of indoor air pollution caused by cooking on wood and charcoal.
Clearing forests for these fuels also causes rampant deforestation.
The best alternative is LPG – liquid petroleum gas - but the World Bank and many rich countries don’t support it because it’s a fossil fuel. Instead, they demand that people in the Global South use unreliable, or expensive alternatives – ones they themselves won’t use.
That's why we're calling on the World Bank to make an exception to the ban on fossil fuel financing, allowing people in Africa to cook safely and sustainably on LPG.
The World Bank should make this commitment explicit at its Annual General Meeting this October. Add your name today to end the climate hypocrisy and secure a cleaner, safer future for the people of Africa.

OUR REPORT
Our report “Africa: Just Stop Cooking” highlights the extent of the hypocrisy of the Global North, showing how they (we) are installing vast new carbon-intensive facilities, dwarfing the climate impact of local LPG use in Africa.
Let's be clear: climate change has been caused by emissions from the Global North and won't be solved by telling Africans to “just stop cooking.”
Support our campaign!
We are eager to receive endorsements from scientists, thought leaders, business leaders, political leaders and other experts.
<read the campaign ask>
We would be honoured for you to reach out to us if you would like to support this initiative.
FAQ
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Q: What is the "Just Stop Cooking" campaign?A: The Just Stop Cooking (JSC) campaign, launched by WePlanet Africa in June 2025, is a satirical yet sobering response to a policy failure in climate circles. It uses humour to expose injustice by suggesting Africans stop cooking on certain days to help the Global North meet its emissions targets. The campaign highlights the absurdity of current development finance policies.
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Q: What is LPG?LPG (Liquefied Petroleum Gas) is a flammable gas mixture primarily made up of propane and butane. Unlike the natural gas delivered through pipelines—which is mostly methane—LPG is stored and transported as a liquid under pressure. It’s typically stored in pressurised tanks or cylinders, making it a convenient off-grid energy source where pipeline gas isn't available. You’ve probably seen LPG in the form of blue canisters commonly used for camping stoves. But its use goes far beyond that—it’s widely used for heating, cooking, and even fueling vehicles in some regions. LPG is a byproduct of two processes: the refining of crude oil and the processing of natural gas. While LPG (butane or propane) is not a greenhouse gas (in contrast to methane) burning LPG does create CO2.
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Q: Why can't 'they' just switch to solar or electric cookers?The Just Stop Cooking report gives a clear, evidence-based answer: it’s not that Africans won’t use solar or electric cookers — it’s that these technologies are currently impractical, inaccessible, or even dangerous in many real-world African settings. Here's why: 🔌 1. Electric cookers require electricity — and many communities don’t have it. Hundreds of millions of people in sub-Saharan Africa still lack access to electricity. For many rural and peri-urban communities, grid expansion won’t arrive for decades. Even where there is a grid, supply is unstable, electricity is expensive, and infrastructure can't support high-power appliances like electric cookers. “E-cooking” is promoted in development plans, but in villages without grid access and with high electricity prices, this is wishful thinking, not policy. ☀️ 2. Solar cookers don’t match the reality of how people actually cook. Solar cookers are useless after sunset — but dinner is often cooked in the evening. Most cooking happens indoors, to protect against the extreme heat outside — and solar cookers can’t be used there. In many regions, cooking is done inside to protect against theft, animals, weather, or for cultural reasons. They don’t work during rain, cloudy days, or for large families who need high heat or longer cooking times. You can’t make staples like ugali, injera, matoke, or fufu reliably with a solar stove. “While Europe builds dozens of LNG terminals, it urges Africa to wait for solar cookers that don’t work at night.” 💀 3. The alternatives people actually use are deadly. Instead of solar or electric stoves, millions rely on wood, charcoal, or kerosene, leading to: 700,000 premature deaths annually from indoor air pollution in Africa. Massive deforestation (responsible for 40% of global forest loss). Denying access to LPG without a viable alternative isn’t “green” — it’s lethal. “Asking Africans to wait for clean energy that doesn't yet exist while they die from smoke is not environmentalism — it's moral failure.”
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Q: What policy failure is the campaign addressing?A: The campaign is addressing the evolution of climate finance rules in the Global North that exclude all fossil fuels from development funding, even those used for life-saving purposes like LPG, which is a clean -apart from being a fossil fuel-, affordable, and widely accessible cooking fuel. International agencies like the World Bank are telling Africa they cannot support a shift to cooking gas because it's a fossil fuel, based on climate investment rules pushed by Global North NGOs and governments forbidding money for fossil fuels.
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Q: What are the consequences of this policy for African families?A: For millions of African families who rely on wood and charcoal, being denied access to LPG means being denied the right to cook safely—or at all. With hundreds of millions of people still without access to electricity in sub-Saharan Africa, this policy means African families are stuck with wood and charcoal for cooking. As a result, thousands of women and children are dying from indoor air pollution each year, and Africa's forests are being levelled. Almost 1 billion people in Africa rely on wood, charcoal, or kerosene, causing 700,000 premature deaths per year, making indoor air pollution a bigger killer than malaria.
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Q: Why is LPG considered a necessary short-term solution for cooking in Africa?A: WePlanet recognises that in regions where the electricity grid may not arrive for decades, LPG is the fastest and most effective way to save lives, protect forests, and empower women. Experts we spoke to for this report agreed that a de-facto ban on LPG support in Africa is being promoted by Global North governments and campaigners at multilateral development banks. Denying this reality based on ideological rigidity is seen not as environmentalism but a moral failure. LPG is described as the most rapid scalable solution to reduce the use of solid biomass for cooking, save thousands of African lives annually, and stop ongoing deforestation.
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Q: How does the report compare Europe's energy use with Africa's need for LPG?A: The report highlights that while Europe is building dozens of new terminals to import natural gas (LNG), it urges Africa to wait for less viable alternatives like solar cookers or electric stoves where electricity is unavailable. Europe is not bound by World Bank rules and can pour billions into new LNG terminals using commercial loans. Just one of Europe's new LNG import terminals is the energy equivalent of sub-Saharan Africa's entire current LPG use. Germany alone has 19 bcm of LNG capacity under construction, which is three times more than the current LPG use of all sub-Saharan Africa. In energy terms, Europe has 7 times more LNG under construction than sub-Saharan Africa's current LPG consumption and 32 times more proposed. The message from the Global North is perceived as: fossil fuels for us, deforestation and hunger for you.
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Q: What is "carbon colonialism"?A: Carbon colonialism is described as a new form of climate injustice where the poorest are asked to sacrifice the most, while the richest continue to expand the very emissions infrastructure they refuse to allow in Africa. The report argues that if Europe wants to stop new fossil fuels, its efforts should begin at home and not be imposed as carbon colonialism on Africa. This is seen as "one rule for the rich, and another for the poor".
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Q: What is the stance of some Global North governments and NGOs regarding LPG financing in Africa?A: According to public health experts and sources interviewed for the report, there is resistance from influential donor countries and their development institutions to invest in LPG because it is a fossil fuel. Experts indicate this is particularly coming from Scandinavian governments and Germany. Some big green NGOs have demanded "a commitment from the World Bank Group to end all types of financial support for fossil fuels" without making an exception for clean cooking in Africa, implicitly demanding a ban on LPG support. While Green NGOs haven't explicitly said they oppose LPG for clean cooking in Africa, their publicly advocated demands for an end to all fossil fuel financing do not acknowledge the climate justice issues. This is described more as a "conspiracy of silence" or an absence of support than an explicit ban, coupled with a focus on non-viable solutions.
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Q: What is the difference between LPG and LNG?A: Both LPG and LNG are fossil fuels, but they are not exactly equivalent. LPG stands for liquid petroleum gas. It is largely butane and propane, produced as a by-product of oil refining, and is usually distributed in gas cylinders for household use. Butane and propane are not considered greenhouse gases. LNG stands for liquified natural gas. It is mainly methane, which is liquified by extremely cold temperatures for transport on ships and re-gasified at import terminals to enter gas pipeline networks. Methane from LNG is a highly potent greenhouse gas with a climate forcing 30 times that of CO2 over 100 years.
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Q: What are the carbon impacts of switching to LPG in Africa?A: While LPG releases CO2 when burned, the report argues that its climate impact may be substantially net positive if it replaces CO2 released from forest destruction due to unsustainable harvesting of wood and charcoal. Deforestation actually creates far more carbon emissions than LPG cooking gas. Sub-Saharan Africa's direct CO2 emissions from cooking gas in a Clean Cooking for All scenario would rise to about 0.05 Gt CO2/year based on WePlanet calculations, or 0.1 Gt in the IEA's estimate, which is still only a tenth of the emissions that will be generated by Europe's LNG building spree. The net impact of a shift to LPG in sub-Saharan Africa will very likely be carbon positive due to avoided deforestation. Cooking with traditional biomass can be as much as 10 times more carbon intensive than using LPG if unsustainably harvested. Achieving the IEA's clean cooking target globally could save up to 2 million hectares of forest per year, accounting for 40% of current worldwide deforestation.
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Q: What are the carbon emissions associated with Europe's LNG infrastructure compared to Africa's LPG use?A: The LNG terminals and pipelines already under construction in Europe are estimated to generate 195 megatonnes of CO2e per year if fully used. This is 12 times higher than all of sub-Saharan Africa's current LPG use emissions (16.2 Mt/year). If all proposed LNG projects in Europe are built, the resulting emissions will be 1,040 megatonnes of CO2e annually, which is 64 times higher than current SSA LPG combustion emissions. Even with a 3x increase in LPG use in SSA for clean cooking access, African emissions (48.6 Mt) would still only be a quarter of Europe's emissions just from LNG terminals and pipelines currently under construction.
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Q: What are the public health stakes of using traditional cooking fuels?A: Using solid biomass fuels for cooking inside homes causes high levels of indoor air pollution. Pollution levels in poorly-ventilated dwellings can be 100 times healthy levels. The death toll from household air pollution is estimated at 3.2 million worldwide each year, according to the WHO. Nearly 240,000 of those deaths are children under 5, with almost half of all deaths due to lower respiratory infection among this group caused by inhaling particulate matter from household air pollution. In Africa, household air pollution causes 700,000 premature deaths per year. Rapid transition to clean cooking with LPG in sub-Saharan Africa is seen as meeting an immediate public health priority. The IEA stated in 2022 that universal clean cooking access by 2030 could reduce premature deaths by over 500,000 a year.
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Q: How much would it cost to achieve clean cooking access in Africa?A: According to the IEA, clean cooking access in Africa requires around US$2.5 billion per year of investment in clean cookstoves and other end-use equipment. Vijaya Ramachandran suggests about US$4.5 billion a year is needed for universal access globally, including infrastructure. The IEA states that the cost for Africa is about a tenth of the cost of a typical large LNG terminal investment.
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Q: What are WePlanet Africa's specific asks?A: WePlanet Africa is calling on the World Bank, other multilateral development banks, and governments in high-emitting countries to explicitly support an exemption from the ban on fossil fuel financing for LPG cooking gas in Africa. They ask that the World Bank make clear that funding for clean cooking, including LPG, is not covered by its ban, and that shareholders lobbying against LPG change their view and communicate this clearly to African governments with concessional financing available. Policy should be guided by the IEA's Clean Cooking for All scenario of a 3x increase in LPG use. They also suggest African governments can assist by removing VAT on LPG canisters and facilitating pay-as-you-go schemes, and that charcoal bans should only be maintained or introduced once affordable alternatives are in place.
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Q: What do you mean by Global North and Global SouthGlobal North and Global South are terms that denote a method of grouping countries based on their defining characteristics with regard to socioeconomics and politics. Even though our campaign is launched from WePlanet Africa, the issue is relevant for the entire Global South. 4 million people die every year due to the effects of indoor air pollution caused by biomass cooking.