In Pakistan’s flood-hit south, women turn to zero-carbon cookstoves to curb emissions

MIRPURKHAS: Surrounded by cauldrons, clay pots and utensils, Sonari Mitthoo sits on the floor of her mud house in the southern Pakistani district of Mirpurkhas as she prepares lunch for her family.

Thanks to her new zero-carbon stove, the 35-year-old mother of nine cooks food without choking on smoke and while adapting to climate change in Pakistan’s flood-hit Sindh province.

Karachi-based NGO Revive Environment Private Limited (REPL) distributed around 500 of these climate-friendly stoves in rural communities in Sindh this year, according to its senior manager operations Muhammad Ramzan.

Woman villagers in Mirpurkhas, Thatta, Umerkot and Sujawal districts have since been benefitting from these devices, which were given to them free of cost.

“This stove emits very little smoke while wood consumption is also nominal,” Mitthoo told Arab News, while cooking inside her house in Ramzan Arain village of Mirpurkhas.