If you can’t stand the heat, get into the kitchen: obligatory passage points and mutually supported impediments at the climate–development interface

摘要

This paper examines the recent integration of cookstove dissemination activities into the global carbon economy. The concepts mutually supported impediments and obligatory passage points are used to advance our understanding of win–win outcomes at the climate–technology–development interface. Focusing on the recent integration of cookstove dissemination activities into the global carbon economy, these concepts provide a theoretical foundation for advancing geographical perspectives on the spatial allocation of control over technology-based development projects. Each concept highlights household cooking spaces as informal sites for activating alternative development potentials under carbon financing. Given that programme success – in both development and climate objective areas – ultimately rests on the willingness of female stove-users to adopt improved cooking technologies and commit to their long-term use, this paper articulates a clear framework that emphasises the need for close and substantive dialogue between project officers, local manufacturers and targeted households; hence the need for diverse programme decision makers to ’get into the kitchen’ when generating strategies that improve both household-scale development and carbon-reduction outcomes.