NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Every morning, Mary Kavutha prepares breakfast for her two young children using an induction cooker in her Nairobi home. Two years ago, the businesswoman relied on a charcoal stove that filled her kitchen with smoke and cost about $1.15 in fuel each day.
Today, she says, for 80 cents in electricity tokens she can cook several meals.
Click to Gallery
Workers assemble fuel-efficient cookstoves at BURN, a manufacturer of clean cooking appliances, in Kiambu, Kenya, on July 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Allan Olingo)
Workers assemble fuel-efficient cookstoves at BURN, a manufacturer of clean cooking appliances, in Kiambu, Kenya, on July 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Allan Olingo)
Workers assemble fuel-efficient cookstoves at BURN, a manufacturer of clean cooking appliances, in Kiambu, Kenya, on July 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Allan Olingo)
Workers assemble fuel-efficient cookstoves at BURN, a manufacturer of clean cooking appliances, in Kiambu, Kenya, on July 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Allan Olingo)
Mary Kavutha prepares breakfast using a fuel-efficient cookstove made by BURN in Kiambu, Kenya, on July 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Allan Olingo)
“It cooks much faster, and is much safer because I have young children,” Kavutha said. “With charcoal there was always smoke in the house. Now I can cook indoors comfortably, and I spend much less.”
Nearly 1 billion Africans still rely on charcoal or firewood for everyday cooking. The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that household air pollution from these fuels contributes to about 850,000 deaths annually on the continent.
Like millions of other Africans, Kavutha switched not out of climate concerns but because the stoves are affordable since they are underwritten by carbon credit financing, which allows clean cooking companies to raise capital against future revenues from emission reductions.
Clean cooking companies are betting that carbon finance, long criticized over concerns about the credibility of some projects, could become Africa's most important tool for expanding cleaner household energy and reducing pressure on forests.
In June, the IEA announced Africa had secured $900 million in new financial commitments towards clean cooking technologies.
More than 30 governments in countries accounting for about 80% of Africans who still lack access to clean cooking have introduced 121 new clean cooking policies since the Paris climate summit in 2015, the energy agency said.
Clean cooking is not a luxury, but an everyday necessity affecting every household, Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu said after co-hosting an IEA conference on clean cooking in Dar es Salaam earlier this year. That followed the African Union’s Dar es Salaam Declaration on Clean Cooking, adopted by 30 governments last year.
Carbon finance has transformed what was once an expensive clean-energy product into one that millions of low-income households can afford, said Peter Scott, founder and CEO of BURN, which makes eco-friendly cookstoves.
“The only way clean cooking is going to scale on the continent is through carbon project finance,” Scott said. “Governments earn revenue and customers get a product they would never have been able to afford without that subsidy.”
The Nairobi-based firm said it has distributed more than 7.3 million cookstoves in 11 African countries.
“Our biggest innovation is not the stove itself, but the financing behind it,” Scott said. “Without that financing, many families cannot afford to switch.”
An efficient biomass stove that would normally retail for about $40 can cost customers as little as $5 after carbon subsidies. More expensive induction cookers are financed through carbon credits and short-term pay-as-you-go plans that spread payments over several months.
“Investors provide upfront capital that subsidizes the retail price of our stoves. In return, they receive revenue from carbon credits generated as households reduce their use of charcoal, wood and other polluting fuels,” he said.
The industry has adopted strict standards and more sophisticated measuring of emissions, including Bluetooth monitoring, digital verification and real-time usage data to address criticism of carbon credits.
Critics of the approach say relying too heavily on carbon credits to finance clean cooking is still risky.
In one setback, the Kenyan clean cooking firm Koko Networks, hailed as a poster child of Africa’s green transition, closed in February after failing to win a government letter of authorization to sell carbon credits.
Carbon money can help but should not be the foundation of the transition, said George Mwaniki, WRI Kenya representative and head of Air Quality for WRI Africa.
The problem, he said, is that carbon finance generally comes after the investment required to put cleaner cooking equipment into households.
“Carbon financing is more of a second financing source,” Mwaniki said. “That creates a problem for clean-cooking companies as they need money to manufacture and distribute equipment before they can generate the emissions reductions that ultimately produce carbon credits.”
“If we depend wholly on carbon credits to support the transition, it will be extremely slow and will not happen at the pace that we need it to,” he said.
Companies are adapting their approach to suit local conditions. BURN, for example, says its electric cooking is more viable in Kenya and Tanzania, while biomass stoves are preferred in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Madagascar.
Eco Safi, which operates in Uganda, Kenya, and Malawi, offers forced-draft pellet stoves and clean, renewable fuel made from agricultural waste. In Rwanda, BioMassters produces smokeless, locally manufactured, solar-powered pellet stoves and biomass-residue fuel, while ENEDOM manufactures agricultural-residue briquettes in Kigali.
For households like Kavutha’s, what matters is that a cleaner stove now costs less to own and operate than the charcoal she once depended on.
“My kitchen is cleaner, my children are safer, and I spend less," Kavutha said. "That is all that matters."
———--
The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
Workers assemble fuel-efficient cookstoves at BURN, a manufacturer of clean cooking appliances, in Kiambu, Kenya, on July 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Allan Olingo)
Workers assemble fuel-efficient cookstoves at BURN, a manufacturer of clean cooking appliances, in Kiambu, Kenya, on July 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Allan Olingo)
Workers assemble fuel-efficient cookstoves at BURN, a manufacturer of clean cooking appliances, in Kiambu, Kenya, on July 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Allan Olingo)
Workers assemble fuel-efficient cookstoves at BURN, a manufacturer of clean cooking appliances, in Kiambu, Kenya, on July 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Allan Olingo)
Mary Kavutha prepares breakfast using a fuel-efficient cookstove made by BURN in Kiambu, Kenya, on July 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Allan Olingo)
Iranians on Wednesday struck a defiant tone, celebrating U.S. voters’ rebuke of President Donald Trump in the midterm elections while many in the Middle East waited to see how the results could affect the Iran war.
Concerns about the war, particularly frustration over rising prices for fuel and other goods in the U.S., helped Democrats win control of both chambers of Congress in Tuesday’s vote, a sharp setback for Trump and his Republican Party.
But Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, whose father and predecessor was killed in the opening strikes of the war in February, dismissed the prospect of any major change in the U.S. approach to the Islamic Republic.
“If there are still those who harbor even a slight hope for a change in behavior or partisan and factional shifts within the system of domination, or who imagine that by giving concessions to America they can dissuade it from hostility toward the Iranian nation, they are gravely mistaken,” he said on his social media account.
The broader region has been on edge for weeks over the prospect of the U.S. resuming full-scale military operations against Iran. Talks aimed at preventing renewed fighting are continuing, while other U.S. allies in the region urge Washington against resuming a war that began more than eight months ago and has rattled the global economy and devastated Iran.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reportedly pushed for more strikes, while Trump has alternated between threatening major military action and pushing for a deal.
Iran’s chief negotiator and parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, wrote Wednesday on X that “Americans said NO TO WAR, and we endorse this message.” He warned that if the U.S. government ignores the vote for change, “it will learn our NO comes with a Nightmare.”
Despite ceasefire agreements and repeated diplomatic efforts, military confrontations have continued in southern Iran and around the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson said in a social media post that Americans had sent a clear message and warned Washington against ignoring it. If the U.S. continues to ignore reality, the spokesperson said, “the consequences of this grave miscalculation will extend far beyond what you have already witnessed.”
Underscoring the mutual hostility at the heart of the conflict, thousands marched through Tehran on Wednesday at a government-organized demonstration commemorating the anniversary of the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy.
Pro-government demonstrators burned American and Israeli flags and chanted “Death to America” and “Death to Israel.” They displayed effigies of Trump and Netanyahu alongside caricatures of the two leaders.
“Trump has gone too far in everything and that’s one reason for his defeat in the election,” said Hananeh Jahed, a demonstrator.
Zahra Nadiminejad praised Iranian resistance, saying U.S. voters “finally figured out that this is Iran, and they can’t just come in here and do whatever the hell they want.”
“They’ve seen the consequences of the war back home, from skyrocketing gas and food prices to all the devastating effects the war has had on their own country. And whether the Democrats win or the Republicans win, our hostility toward America will never come to an end.”
Nearly three decades ago, Iranian students stormed the U.S. Embassy on Nov. 4, 1979, taking American diplomats and other citizens hostage. Fifty-two Americans were held for 444 days before being released.
The crisis helped cement the rupture between the two countries, which have had no formal diplomatic relations for years.
The United States and Israel launched the war against Iran on Feb. 28, killing the country’s longtime supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and triggering a conflict that has disrupted global energy markets and shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
Addressing the demonstrators on Wednesday, Tehran Mayor Alireza Zakani claimed the United States and Israel had suffered a massive defeat, which he said was also reflected in last week's Israeli elections.
“The decisive defeat of the United States and the Zionist regime in recent developments and elections is the result of the Iranian nation’s steadfastness and strength,” Zakani said.
The U.S. elections came just a day after what appeared to be a limited strike on Iranian targets in the crucial Strait of Hormuz waterway, which renewed questions about what might come next.
Iranian state media reported explosions Monday on Qeshm and Hengam islands and near the southern port city of Bandar Abbas. Iranian authorities have not publicly identified the specific sites struck or disclosed the extent of the damage.
The Strait of Hormuz, through which about a fifth of the world’s traded oil and gas transited before the war, has seen repeated Iranian attacks on commercial shipping. Iran has sought to restrict shipping to pressure the U.S. to lift its blockade on Iranian ports.
Iran’s state TV said Wednesday that four oil tankers caught fire after they struck mines on what it described as unauthorized routes.
Back-channel negotiations have continued.
U.S. Vice President JD Vance said Monday that he and Trump “both feel pretty good about the prospects for potentially coming to a negotiated settlement.”
Before the latest strikes, the Trump administration’s last known attacks on Iran were in early September. Thousands of U.S. troops remain in waters off Iran to maintain the naval blockade, aimed at preventing tankers carrying Iranian oil from reaching the global market. Another aircraft carrier and thousands of additional troops are on their way to the Middle East.
Associated Press writers Samy Magdy, Toqa Ezzidin and Aamer Madhani contributed to this report.
Iranian government supporters raise their fists, one holding a portrait of Iran's late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and a caricature of U.S. President Donald Trump, during the annual rally marking the anniversary of the 1979 U.S. Embassy takeover, outside the former embassy in Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Iranian government supporters burn an Israeli flag during the annual rally marking the anniversary of the 1979 U.S. Embassy takeover, outside the former embassy in Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Iranian government supporters step on U.S. and Israeli flags during the annual rally marking the anniversary of the 1979 U.S. Embassy takeover, outside the former embassy in Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
An Iranian government supporter carries an Iranian flag and a poster depicting Iran's Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei with a rifle as he walks beneath a matching banner during the annual rally marking the anniversary of the 1979 U.S. Embassy takeover, outside the former embassy in Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Iranian government supporters, including clerics, raise their fists as they stand on U.S. and Israeli flags during the annual rally marking the anniversary of the 1979 U.S. Embassy takeover, outside the former embassy in Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Iranian government supporters raise their fists, one holding a portrait of Iran's late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and a caricature of U.S. President Donald Trump, during the annual rally marking the anniversary of the 1979 U.S. Embassy takeover, outside the former embassy in Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Boys, some wearing camouflage uniforms and green berets, stand in front of caricatures of U.S. President Donald Trump during the annual rally marking the anniversary of the 1979 U.S. Embassy takeover, outside the former embassy in Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Iranian government supporters burn an Israeli flag during the annual rally marking the anniversary of the 1979 U.S. Embassy takeover, outside the former embassy in Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Iranian government supporters step on U.S. and Israeli flags during the annual rally marking the anniversary of the 1979 U.S. Embassy takeover, outside the former embassy in Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
