Biomass Fuel at the Nexus: Policy Lessons from Bottom-Up Perspectives in Urban Ghana

据估计，80%的撒哈拉以南非洲家庭依靠固体生物质作为做饭燃料。在世界范围内，生物质燃料的使用不成比例地集中在农村。但在撒哈拉以南非洲，国际能源署估计，60%的城市居民使用木材或木制产品（木炭）。生物质燃料的使用与污染造成的过早死亡、森林砍伐造成的环境问题以及与气候变化有关的排放有关。因此，可持续发展目标7承诺到2030年“确保所有人获得负担得起、可靠、可持续和现代的能源”。政策举措往往对这一问题采取孤立的方法，针对来自特定人工制品（改进的炉灶、沼气池）或更清洁燃料的“清洁能源”。2010年，全球清洁炉灶联盟制定了“到2020年1亿个家庭”采用清洁炉灶和燃料的目标。然而，自20世纪40年代末以来，改进的炉子设计一直在推广，但收效甚微。在生物质燃料被视为一个更广泛的联系，自上而下的方法导致误导性的假设。在1970年代，薪材采集被等同于砍伐森林;没有考虑到农村居民是否如社会科学家在某些情况下发现的那样以和谐的方式管理这一过程。研究当地对政策界定的问题的态度现在很常见，但结构化问卷的结果是开放的问题，较贫穷的户主可能会感到约束，以回答他们的方式“期望”。定性研究人员强调了从一个更开放的方法，侧重于构成日常生活的紧张和和谐的家庭意外的发现。有三个因素表明，对生物质燃料政策采取自下而上的联系办法是有价值的。首先，设计师将炉灶与烹饪食物联系起来，旨在优化木材或木炭的使用。然而，在实践中，照明、供暖、水净化、食物准备和食物垃圾管理都是潜在的相关因素。重要的不是关注“清洁能源”甚至食物，而是了解家庭如何管理食物、燃料和废物之间的关系。第二，这种联系必须放在其他家庭现实的背景下看待。我们以前的工作表明，采用清洁燃料/炉灶的能力是由相互竞争的优先事项、愿望和制约因素决定的，这些因素贯穿生计、收入和社会结构（特别是性别）。第三，从自下而上的角度看待燃料生产和管理与环境之间的关系，也有利于针对燃料（而不是炉灶或沼气池）的政策。例如，一些木炭生产商质疑砍伐木材必然导致森林砍伐。我们将通过领导该项目的诺丁汉大学团队与西非学者和利益攸关方之间的伙伴关系，共同创建和传播与政策相关的基于关系的理解，以应对这些挑战。研究将侧重于加纳城市，那里对清洁炉灶和燃料的政策兴趣重新抬头。我们的合作伙伴包括伊巴丹大学、何理工学院、加纳清洁炉灶联盟（GHACCO）和一家在可持续能源供应链中开展工作的社会企业Gyapa。我们将探索a.）住户如何看待清洁能源与资源管理其他方面的关系，以及他们的选择揭示了他们的优先事项和愿望; B.）木炭生产商和零售商如何管理森林保护、燃料使用者和沿着供应链的其他人的优先事项;以及c.）如何利用这一分析得出的见解来完善国家和全球一级针对清洁炉灶和燃料的政策。

80 percent of sub-Saharan households are estimated to rely on solid biomass as fuel for cooking. Worldwide, biomass fuel use is disproportionately rural. But in sub-Saharan Africa, the International Energy Agency estimates that 60 percent of urban dwellers use wood or wood-based products (charcoal). Biomass fuel use is linked to premature death from pollution, environmental problems of deforestation and emissions linked to climate change. Hence, the Sustainable Development Goal 7 promises to "ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all" by 2030.Policy initiatives have tended to take a siloed approach to this problem, targeting 'clean energy' from specific artefacts (improved cookstoves, biogas digesters) or cleaner fuels. In 2010, the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves set a target for take-up of cleaner stoves and fuels in a "100 million households by 2020". Yet, improved stove designs have been promoted since the late 1940s with limited success. Where biomass fuel has been considered within a wider nexus, a top-down approach has led to misleading assumptions. In the 1970s, fuelwood gathering was equated with deforestation; no consideration was given to whether rural dwellers managed the process in harmonious ways as social scientists discovered in some cases. Studies of local attitudes to policy-defined problems are now common, but results of structured questionnaires are open to question with poorer householders likely to feel constrained to answer in ways 'expected' of them. Qualitative researchers have highlighted unexpected findings from a more open-ended approach focusing on the tensions and harmonies constituting the daily hum of life in households. Three factors point to the value of a bottom-up nexus approach to biomass fuel policies. First, designers associate the stove with cooking food and aim to optimise the use of wood or charcoal. Yet, in practice, lighting, heating, water purification, food preparation, and food waste management are all potentially relevant. Rather than focus on 'clean energy' or even food, understanding how households manage the nexus between food, fuel and waste is important. Second, this nexus must be placed in the context of other household realities. Our previous work shows that the ability to adopt cleaner fuels/stoves is shaped by competing priorities, aspirations and constraints that cut across livelihoods, income and social structures (notably, gender). Third, policies targeting fuels (as opposed to stoves or digesters) would also benefit from a bottom-up perspective on the nexus between how fuel production and management, and the environment. For example, some charcoal producers contest that wood-clearing necessarily leads to deforestation. We will address these challenges by co-creating and disseminating a policy-relevant nexus-based understanding through a partnership between the University of Nottingham team leading the project and academics and stakeholders in West Africa. The research will focus on urban Ghana where there is a resurgence of policy interest in cleaner stoves and fuels. Our partners include the University of Ibadan, Ho Polytechnic, the Ghana Alliance for Clean Cookstoves (GHACCO) and Gyapa, a social enterprise working across the sustainable energy supply chain. We will explore a.) how householders view clean energy in relation to other aspects of resource management, and what their choices reveal about their priorities and aspirations; b.) how charcoal producers and retailers manage priorities of forest conservation, fuel-users and others along the supply chain; and c.) how insights from this analysis might be used to refine national- and global-level policies targeting cleaner stoves and fuels.