Gina McCarthy interacting with the children at Girls Guide.
The Administrator of the United States (US) Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Gina McCarthy, has advocated the use of clean cook stoves to improve the lives of women and young children.
Ms. McCarthy said it was important for the country to look at the option of using clean cook stoves because of its immense contribution in reducing the impact of climate change on women and young girls.
“No one wants to talk to somebody about cooking who does not cook,” She said. “So women and girls are those who are able to bring home the message that these cook stoves cause significant impact on them.”
Interacting with school children as part of her visit to the country, Ms. McCarthy said the Agency does not only see clean cook stove as a big environmental and climate change issue, and a tremendous public health challenge but also a way to empower girls and women so they can get involved in small business of manufacturing and distributing clean cook stoves.
“It offers tremendous opportunity for efficiency, time saving, education and business opportunities; the option is to make sure it is not polluting and the carbon pollution it generates is taken care of,” she added.
Ms. McCarthy said over 13,000 women and young children are impacted and die every year in Ghana alone as a result of not using clean cook stoves.
The US EPA administrator said her visit was to explore and look at ways the US can support Ghana’s effort in researching into cooking technologies that can replace old cook stoves.
“We can look at the use of a variety of fuels women can try and change and hopefully they will be better in many ways, save kids lives and stop deforestation which is a problem for climate change and it will allow women to have more time and girls can go to school rather than chasing fire wood around,” she stated.
“We need to continue to innovate so that all the technologies have a fair shot of being in the market and provide energy that people need in a way that is clean and protects the planet,” she added.
Ms. McCarthy later joined women’s roundtable on the roles of women in science and environment, where she interacted with students and faculty exploring the challenges facing girls in the perceived male preferred field of hard science.
She said it was time for educational authorities to ensure that girls enter science and technology and engineering and math because, “these girls are half of the population and we want to make sure we are not wasting so much talent and we want to get them the education that they want and let them know that any career is available to them.”
By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri