At our inaugural meeting in Morelia, Michoachan, Mexico in 2017, inspired by the High Ambition Coalition that helped secure key elements of the Paris Declaration, we called the initiative Pathways to Clean Cooking 2050.
Pathways was neat because it is inclusive of various paths and tayectories that can lead to the same objective - clean cooking. 2050 was chosen as the target year in recognition of the immense transition required and the need for a long-term vision, while aware of the need for urgency.
In the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change's Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 ⁰C, published in 2018, Pathways was defined in the report’s glossary as “the temporal evolution of natural and/or human systems towards a future state. Pathway concepts range from sets of quantitative and qualitative scenarios or narratives of potential futures to solution-oriented decision-making processes to achieve desirable societal goals. Pathway approaches typically focus on biophysical, techno-economic, and/or socio-behavioural trajectories and involve various dynamics, goals and actors across different scales.”
Our starting point is afirmation that energy for cooking is essential for human wellbeing and a desirable societal goal is to ensure access to affordable, reliable, and sustainable energy for all - leave no-one behind.
The scenarios or narratives of potential futures of how that goal may be achieved and what it might look like in years to come will include various fuels and technologies, and behaviours and practices that recognise many differences sevices and needs to be available. to everyone
The IPCC deinition, understandably technical, reassures us that we are on the right conceptual track and that the pathway to clean cooking can be part of lots of different complementary pathways that can lead to a more sustainable, healthier, happier world.