The phrase “clean cooking transition” sounds like energy policy. In millions of homes, it is also a health and time issue shaped heavily by women’s labor. Smoke from charcoal and firewood accumulates where people cook, while collecting or purchasing fuel takes money and hours that could be used elsewhere.

Cleaner stoves become more attractive when they are not merely better for the climate but also faster, safer and cheaper to use. That is a useful lesson for development policy: people do not exist to complete an emissions target. A technology succeeds when it improves daily life.

Carbon-credit financing may help lower upfront costs, but households should not be left dependent on a volatile global market for something as basic as safe energy. Governments and donors still have a role in treating clean cooking as infrastructure rather than a niche consumer choice.

Climate action becomes more durable when the benefits arrive in the kitchen before they appear in an international accounting system.