This report summarizes the findings of a review aimed at understanding emerging approaches to energy subsidy reform, discerning trends, and identifying major strands of thinking and research in the field, as reflected in major policy and academic journals relevant to the subject.

Understanding the distributional consequences of progressive fossil fuel subsidy reform is critical to the sustainability of reform efforts as well as progress towards more just and inclusive energy transitions.

This report presents key findings from a series of IRENA virtual knowledge exchanges on renewables-based clean cooking solutions in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia.

This compendium, Powering India’s Future: Towards a People-Positive Energy Transition, delves into the complex landscape of India’s energy transformation journey.

Nearly one in three people, the vast majority of them in the poorest regions of the world, still lack access to clean cooking facilities, with major ramifications for public health, local environments and socio-economic development.

In countries of the Global South, 2.4 billion people cook with solid fuels, resulting in 3.2 million premature deaths and economic losses of US$2.4 trillion annually. Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) is considered to be a scalable transition cooking solution until renewable options become market-ready.

Energy subsidies, which have a long history of use by governments around the world, have been rising in recent years after a brief period of decline. Despite their significant wider costs, subsidies are used by governments for various policy, and political reasons.

To facilitate a sustainable switch to electricity as the primary cooking fuel in India, several significant obstacles must be overcome, including the high upfront cost of electric cookstoves, the availability of affordable and reliable renewable electricity, and the need for behavioural change to adapt to a cultural shift.

In the clean cooking sector, the successful application of Results-Based Financing (RBF) instruments has been observed for the climate co-benefit, where the market for averted greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions has enjoyed strong performance; however, supplementing GHG emission-reduction credits with tradeable assets from clean cooking’s additional

Provision of clean cooking for all is recognized as a critical cross-sectoral development issue. The potential societal benefits are enormous, particularly for public health, women’s productivity and empowerment, and the environment.