The North East Development Commission (NEDC), in collaboration with the Borno State Government, has trained 50 women on how to use renewable energy stoves.

They were also given stoves as replacements for their traditional firewood and kerosene stoves.

Speaking at the two-day training held at Lake Chad Research Institute in Maiduguri, a resource person, Falmata Mustapha, said the traditional charcoal stoves being used in some low-income households are mostly poorly made and inefficient.

"This is because they are made of scrap metals with no option to regulate the fuel burn rate and often without pot rest.

"This causes high emissions of potentially lethal carbon monoxide, and wastes a lot of fuel since carbon monoxide is an unburnt fuel with high energy value."

She explained that energy-efficient charcoal stoves could save between 30 to 50 per cent of charcoal and reduce toxic emissions compared to unconventional traditional charcoal stoves.

In his remarks, the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of NEDC, Alhaji Mohammed Goni Alkali, said Nigeria's northeast exemplifies a typical extreme case of the country's version of climate change, revelling in ecological imbalance accompanied by devastating consequences.