This paper reviews the possibilities for win-win climate and development outcomes in programmes that distribute improved efficiency cookstoves (ICS) with the use of carbon finance. The authors note that ICS technologies form an important, if asymmetrical, environment-development interface and illustrate the mutually supported local (development) and global (climate change) benefits of continued improved stoves use. The paper describes the ways in which programme results are highly contextual and that, in practice, there are a number of challenges to achieving effective win-win outcomes. The paper notes that while carbon finance provides an opportunity to fund scalable and enforceable stove programmes, it may also introduce mutually supported impediments. Drawing on development debates for ICS use, scientific reports on stove-based greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions and pre-existing case studies of carbon and non-carbon financed cookstoves in Peru, Uganda and Cambodia, the authors conclude that the challenge for future carbon financed ICS projects will be to promote congruence between climate and development objectives in order to overcome mutually supported impediments.