For three billion people living in low-income and middle-income countries, the simple act of cooking is a major health and safety risk. They routinely cook with fuels such as wood, animal dung, coal and kerosene. Burning these types of fuels in open fires or traditional stoves causes harmful household air pollution, resulting in an estimated 3.8 million deaths annually according to the World Health Organization (WHO), and contributes to various health, socio-economic, and environmental problems.
Health effects are concentrated among women, who are more likely to be responsible for cooking, and young children. The work of gathering fuel exposes women and children to safety risks and often consumes 15 or more hours per week, constraining their time available for education, rest and paid work.
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Many people cook on open fires, filling their homes with smoke.
Household air pollution was responsible for an estimated 3.2 million deaths per year in 2020, including over 237,000 deaths of children under the age of five.
Household air pollution increases the risk of noncommunicable diseases including stroke, ischaemic heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and lung cancer.
Household air pollution eventually finds its way outside, and many meals are cooked outdoors on open fires. Outdoor air pollution in both cities and rural areas was estimated to cause 4.2 million premature deaths worldwide per year in 2019. This mortality is due to exposure to fine particulate matter, which causes cardiovascular and respiratory disease and cancers9.
Black carbon (sooty particles) and methane emitted by inefficient stove combustion are powerful climate pollutants. Emissions from non-renewable biomass for cooking amount to 1 Gt/CO2 per year — about 2% of global emissions and up to 4.3% of total emissions in pan-tropical regions, and roughly on a par with emissions from aviation.
Approximately 30% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from forest degradation are caused by harvesting fuel for cooking.
Up to 34% of wood harvested is unsustainable, contributing to forest degradation and climate change.
Women and children can spend up to ten hours each week gathering fuel, walking ever-greater distances and carrying heavy loads due to forest degradation. In many countries, women spend 1.5 hours each day collecting firewood and four hours are spent cooking.
Women and girls must often walk long distances to obtain cooking fuel, and, as a result, face increased risk of physical and sexual violence. Many children, especially girls, may skip school to help with firewood collection and food preparation.
There are a range of options to reduce cooking emissions and provide access to clean cooking fuels. These include electric stoves, clean biomass stoves or connections to the natural gas grid.
Many governments have already prioritised the rapid scale-up of LPG to secure cleaner cooking and forest protection, alongside active investment in renewables.
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On Tuesday 14th May 2024, world leaders convened at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris, for a Summit on Clean Cooking in Africa, co-hosted by the International Energy Agency and the Clean Cooking Alliance. The Summit brought together over 800 people from approximately 50 countries, and was an opportunity to make 2024 a turning point for progress on ensuring clean cooking access for all. Help us spread the word.
It has a proven track record in substituting charcoal and biomass for a substantial part of household energy, and could contribute positively towards several of the SDGs, including Access to Energy, Climate Change, Health, and Gender/Equality.
In the industrialised world, LPG is the cooking fuel of choice in rural areas and for outdoor cooking. Gas cooking is efficient, fast and reliable. For recreational applications, LPG can also be transported in convenient, compact cylinders. To further reduce CO2 emissions, traditional LPG can be seamlessly replaced by renewable gases.
