Marianna Chebet Komen
Title: Sovereign Carbon Governance and the Fragility of Carbon Financed Clean Cooking Service Provision in Kenya: A Case Study of Koko Networks’ Collapse
Supervisor: Dr. Johanna Vallistu
Opponent: Dr. Amirouche Moktefi
Defense: 8 June 2026
Abstract: This study examines how carbon finance has emerged as a mechanism for bridging the affordability gap that prevents low-income households from accessing clean cooking services, by generating revenue through carbon credit sales to subsidise costs. It looks at how the adoption of Article 6 of the Paris Agreement has introduced a sovereign authorisation layer, that vests significant discretionary authority in host country governments over the legitimacy and transferability of carbon credits. It focuses on examining how this sovereign regulatory authority over carbon credit authorisation is institutionally structured in Kenya, and what its relationship to clean cooking sector service provision is. Using a single revelatory case study of the Koko Networks Kenya collapse, in which the denial of a Letter of Authorisation in February 2026 produced the loss of clean cooking services for over one million low-income households, the study employs process tracing and qualitative institutional analysis. Data was collected through eight semi-structured interviews with government officials, carbon market practitioners, and clean cooking sector stakeholders, alongside document analysis of Kenya's carbon market regulatory framework. The findings show that Kenya's carbon credit authorisation framework and its clean cooking sector governance operate in institutional disconnection, sharing an affected population but lacking formal coordination mechanisms, creating an institutional void that allows sovereign regulatory decisions to transmit unmediated to the household level. The study identifies four institutional conditions under which the vulnerabilities materialise as service continuity harm. It contributes to literature on carbon market governance, regulatory risk in climate finance, and clean cooking energy access, and offers policy recommendations for governance reform that extend beyond the clean cooking sector to carbon-financed development models more broadly.
Keywords: carbon credit authorisation, Article 6.2, Letter of Authorisation, clean cooking, sovereign regulatory authority, carbon finance, service continuity, low-income households
