Exposure to household air pollution (HAP) from cooking and heating with solid fuels is major risk factor for morbidity and mortality in sub-Saharan Africa. Children under five are particularly at risk for acute lower respiratory infection. We use baseline data from randomized controlled trial evaluating a household energy intervention in Gisenyi, Rwanda to investigate the role of the microenvironment as a determinant of children's HAP-related health symptoms. Our sample includes 529 households, with 694 children under five.

Cooking with solid fuels and inefficient cookstoves has adverse consequences for health, environment, and human well-being. Despite the promise of improved cookstoves to reduce these impacts, adoption rates are relatively low. Using a 2-wave sample of 144 households from the baseline and first midline of an ongoing 4-year randomized controlled trial in Rwanda, we analyze the drivers and associations of early adoption of a household energy intervention marketed by a private sector firm.

Promoting access to clean household cooking energy is an important subject for policy making in low‐ and middle‐income countries, in light of urgent and global efforts to achieve universal energy access by 2030 (Sustainable Development Goal 7). In 2014, the World Health Organization issued “Guidelines for Indoor Air Quality: Household Fuel Combustion”, which recommended a shift to cleaner fuels rather than promotion of technologies that more efficiently combust solid fuels.

Discussions between policymakers about renewable energy have gained momentum in recent years, amid growing recognition of the need for more investment in green energy sources. The question is whether households in developing countries like South Africa will support green energy actions if it comes at an additional cost or whether they are simply arm-chair environmentalist. To assess this, we use the contingency valuation method (CVM) to identify the determinants of support for renewable energy.

South African households, like households in many other developing countries, are faced with regular power outages. This is a big problem, since the outages that the households experience are both frequent and long in duration. Efficient electricity infrastructure investment decisions are possible only if the welfare loss of electricity blackouts is determined. We estimate a measure for welfare analysis. We subject respondents to eight power outage scenarios. We use a random parameter panel Tobit model to account for both zero willingness to pay (WTP) and cross-sectional heterogeneity.

Fuelwood and charcoal are fundamental fuel sources for the residential sector in Mexico. A Business-As-Usual (BAU) projection by means of a spatially-explicit approach was developed to assess national fuelwood and charcoal consumption for the period 2010 to 2030. The model was calibrated for 1990–2000 and 2010 projections were validated against official census data for the same year. For 2010, we estimated that fuelwood and charcoal accounted for 48% of total residential energy demand.

Improved cookstoves have been identified in Mexico as a key opportunity to advance sustainable local development priorities in disadvantaged regions while mitigating climate change. This paper reviews the Patsari Cookstove Project initiated in 2003 by an NGO, Interdisciplinary Group on Appropriate Rural Technology (GIRA). The project applied an interdisciplinary and participative user-centered approach to disseminate improved cookstoves in rural Mexico, with a special focus on indigenous and poor rural communities.

Bioenergy is the largest renewable energy source in Mexico with an estimated 4–9% of total current energy demand. There are large uncertainties and contrasting estimates regarding its current extent and end-uses, particularly with traditional uses. However, a large potential exists to improve the efficiency of existing uses and, at the same time, to diversify the use of SBF in the industrial and power sectors.

This article presents an historical account of patterns of household fuelwood use in Mexico from 1960 until the present. The results of scenarios outlining the likely evolution of future fuelwood use according to different socio-demographic and technological variables are offered up to 2030 along with the expected environmental impacts. Mexico is an interesting case as it went from importing oil to becoming an oilexporting country during the historical period under analysis and the use of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) intensified in the residential sector.