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Cost of Survival: Charcoal smoke, women's health, Uganda's vanishing forests
We often speak of climate change in abstract, sweeping terms: melting glaciers, international accords, shifting weather patterns. But in Uganda, the climate emergency wears a maternal face. It is found in the kitchens of low-income women who bear a disproportionate share of our ecological and public health burdens.
Nalubega Antonia Ritah. (Courtesy)
By: Admin ., Journalist @New Vision
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OPINION
By Nalubega Antonia Ritah
Every dawn in Kampala, the city exhales smoke before it breathes light. Across informal settlements, thousands of women light charcoal stoves to prepare the day's first meal. They fan the black embers, and the air thickens with a poison everyone knows too well. The grey smoke rises into cramped rooms, carrying the risk of chronic coughing, eye irritation, and respiratory disease. Yet these women continue because they have little choice. This is not a crisis of ignorance; it is the tragic algebra of poverty, where the price of a clean gas cylinder remains an impossible luxury, and survival is paid for in smoke.
We often speak of climate change in abstract, sweeping terms: melting glaciers, international accords, shifting weather patterns. But in Uganda, the climate emergency wears a maternal face. It is found in the kitchens of low-income women who bear a disproportionate share of our ecological and public health burdens.
I remember one woman I met during my early fieldwork in Tororo. She had developed a persistent cough and described how smoke from her charcoal stove irritated her eyes and chest. She was diagnosed with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. The doctor warned her clearly not to use charcoal or firewood again. Yet when I asked why she continued, her answer was immediate: "What else can I afford?" That single sentence is the heartbeat of this crisis. It is not culture. It is not habit. It is poverty.
These experiences informed two independent studies I conducted between 2023 and 2026 — first among 96 low-income households in Katanga, Kampala, then a capstone study with 52 women in Bwaise.
The numbers confirm what the stories already tell us. 90.4% of low-income Kampala women rely on charcoal as their primary cooking fuel. 82.7% suffer respiratory symptoms, and 65.4% are fully aware of the long-term harm. Yet awareness without options is a cruel joke. These women are not choosing smoke; they are cornered by an economy that denies them clean alternatives. And here lies the most hopeful finding: 86.5% would switch immediately if clean fuels cost the same as charcoal. The demand for clean energy is not the problem. The barrier is access.
Some argue that charcoal is tradition, embedded in our way of life. But tradition does not explain why women with stable incomes — teachers, nurses, civil servants — move to gas almost instantly. When income stabilises, the fire changes. Poverty, not preference, keeps the smoke alive.
This is not only a story of lungs and kitchens. It is a story of forests and rainfall, of a nation's climate unravelling. At roughly sh1,500 per kilogram, a household spending sh61,000–100,000 per month consumes 41–67 kg of charcoal monthly. According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation, producing 1 kg of charcoal requires approximately 7 kg of dry wood when using traditional earth-mound kilns. These households are burning through 280–467 kg of wood per household every month — before accounting for firewood, brick-burning, or tobacco curing.
These experiences informed two independent studies I conducted between 2023 and 2026 — first among 96 low-income households in Katanga, Kampala, then a capstone study with 52 women in Bwaise.
The numbers confirm what the stories already tell us. 90.4% of low-income Kampala women rely on charcoal as their primary cooking fuel. 82.7% suffer respiratory symptoms, and 65.4% are fully aware of the long-term harm. Yet awareness without options is a cruel joke. These women are not choosing smoke; they are cornered by an economy that denies them clean alternatives. And here lies the most hopeful finding: 86.5% would switch immediately if clean fuels cost the same as charcoal. The demand for clean energy is not the problem. The barrier is access.
Some argue that charcoal is tradition, embedded in our way of life. But tradition does not explain why women with stable incomes — teachers, nurses, civil servants — move to gas almost instantly. When income stabilises, the fire changes. Poverty, not preference, keeps the smoke alive.
This is not only a story of lungs and kitchens. It is a story of forests and rainfall, of a nation's climate unravelling. At roughly sh1,500 per kilogram, a household spending sh61,000–100,000 per month consumes 41–67 kg of charcoal monthly. According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation, producing 1 kg of charcoal requires approximately 7 kg of dry wood when using traditional earth-mound kilns. These households are burning through 280–467 kg of wood per household every month — before accounting for firewood, brick-burning, or tobacco curing.
According to NEMA, Uganda's forest cover has plummeted from 24% in 1990 to 12% today, consumed by the 40 million cubic metres of wood burned annually for charcoal. As forests vanish, the rains falter. Matooke plantations wilt, food insecurity deepens. The same women who inhale smoke in Kampala watch their harvests collapse in the countryside. Energy poverty is not a household inconvenience. It is a national emergency.
The cycle is clear: charcoal dependence drives deforestation, deforestation disrupts rainfall, rainfall failure collapses agriculture, and collapsed agriculture deepens poverty — which locks households back into charcoal. Breaking it requires more than sympathy. It requires finance, policy, and courage.
The solution does not require reinventing the wheel. It requires redirecting existing financial infrastructure toward the women who need it most. Where modest financing has reached these households, behaviour is already beginning to shift. The gap is not desire, knowledge, or political will. It is the absence of a targeted financial product that meets low-income women where they are.
The cost of inaction is staggering: damaged lungs, depleted savings, felled trees, failed harvests. Uganda cannot meet its Paris Agreement commitments, its forest restoration targets, or its gender equity goals while millions of women remain trapped in biomass dependence. Clean energy access for low-income women is not a peripheral concern. It is the intervention that holds everything else together.
This is not charity. It is justice. It is climate resilience. It is gender equity. It is national survival. Behind every statistic is a mother who wakes before dawn, lights a fire, and breathes smoke so her children can eat. She would change it tomorrow if given the chance. We owe her that chance.
The writer is a public health researcher
The cycle is clear: charcoal dependence drives deforestation, deforestation disrupts rainfall, rainfall failure collapses agriculture, and collapsed agriculture deepens poverty — which locks households back into charcoal. Breaking it requires more than sympathy. It requires finance, policy, and courage.
The solution does not require reinventing the wheel. It requires redirecting existing financial infrastructure toward the women who need it most. Where modest financing has reached these households, behaviour is already beginning to shift. The gap is not desire, knowledge, or political will. It is the absence of a targeted financial product that meets low-income women where they are.
The cost of inaction is staggering: damaged lungs, depleted savings, felled trees, failed harvests. Uganda cannot meet its Paris Agreement commitments, its forest restoration targets, or its gender equity goals while millions of women remain trapped in biomass dependence. Clean energy access for low-income women is not a peripheral concern. It is the intervention that holds everything else together.
This is not charity. It is justice. It is climate resilience. It is gender equity. It is national survival. Behind every statistic is a mother who wakes before dawn, lights a fire, and breathes smoke so her children can eat. She would change it tomorrow if given the chance. We owe her that chance.
The writer is a public health researcher