One part of energy poverty is not having access to clean, modern fuels and tools for cooking. As of 2020, more than 2.6 billion people in developing countries often cook using fuels like wood, animal waste, coal, or kerosene. Burning these fuels in open fires or traditional stoves creates harmful air inside homes, leading to about 3.8 million deaths each year, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). This also causes health, economic, and environmental issues.

Making clean cooking available to more people is part of United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 7. The World Health Organization (WHO) says clean cooking includes using stoves and appliances powered by electricity, liquid petroleum gas (LPG), piped natural gas (PNG), biogas, alcohol, or solar heat that meet WHO standards for clean cooking.

Stoves that burn wood and other solid fuels more efficiently than traditional stoves are called "improved cookstoves" or "clean cookstoves." With few exceptions, these stoves provide fewer health benefits than those using liquid or gaseous fuels. However, they use less fuel, which helps reduce harm to the environment. Improved cookstoves are a useful temporary solution in areas where cleaner technologies are harder to use.

Efforts to promote cleaner cooking practices have had limited success. For practical, cultural, and economic reasons, many families who use clean stoves and fuels often continue to rely heavily on traditional fuels and stoves.

Issues with traditional cooking fuels

As of 2023, more than 2.3 billion people in developing countries use fuels like wood, dried animal waste, coal, or kerosene for cooking. This practice creates harmful air pollution inside homes and contributes to outdoor air pollution. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that cooking-related pollution causes 3.8 million deaths each year. A study from 2021 found that 3.1 million deaths were linked to this issue, with the highest death rates in Africa. Air pollution from cooking is connected to many health problems, including stroke, pneumonia, and long-term breathing issues like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Exposure to this pollution during pregnancy can also lead to low birth weight in babies.

In traditional cooking setups, smoke is often released inside homes instead of being vented outside. Smoke from solid fuels contains thousands of harmful substances, including carbon monoxide, tiny particles, nitrous oxide, sulfur oxides, and harmful chemicals like formaldehyde, benzene, and polycyclic aromatic compounds such as benzo-a-pyrene. These substances can harm health in both the short and long term.

Exposure to household air pollution nearly doubles the risk of childhood pneumonia and causes 45% of all pneumonia deaths in children under five. It is also linked to eye problems like cataracts, which are a major cause of blindness in lower-middle-income countries, and low birth weight. Cooking with open fires or unsafe stoves is a common cause of burns among women and children in developing countries.

Women and children are most affected by this pollution because they often handle cooking and childcare. Collecting fuel for cooking takes 15 or more hours each week, limiting time for education, rest, or work. Women and girls may walk long distances to gather fuel, increasing their risk of harm. Many children, especially girls, miss school to help with fuel collection or cooking.

Old cooking methods are inefficient, allowing much heat to escape. This inefficiency leads to more wood being burned and increases emissions of black carbon, which harms the climate. Overharvesting wood and other fuels can cause serious environmental damage, such as desertification.

While harvesting biomass in sensitive areas is a problem, most clearing of biomass is now due to farming and land use changes. Using crop waste and animal waste for cooking reduces their availability for improving soil health, fertilizing crops, and feeding livestock.

Terminology

The term "clean cookstove" is often used without a clear explanation of its meaning. Different organizations have different ways of defining "clean":

• The World Health Organization (WHO) considers cooking facilities "clean" if they release less carbon monoxide and fine particulate matter than certain limits.
• The Clean Cooking Alliance uses the term "clean cooking" in a broader way. Their definition includes what the WHO calls "improved cookstoves," which are stoves that burn biomass fuel more efficiently than traditional stoves. As of 2020, most stoves that burn biomass fuel do not meet WHO standards for "clean" even if they are more efficient than traditional stoves.

The WHO has expressed concern about marketing biomass cookstoves as "improved" if they have not been tested against established standards and if their health benefits are not clear.

WHO-recommended clean cooking facilities

A major goal in global efforts to promote sustainability is to ensure that clean cooking methods are available and affordable for everyone.

The World Health Organization (WHO) defines "clean" cooking tools as those powered by electricity, liquid petroleum gas (LPG), piped natural gas (PNG), biogas, alcohol, or solar heat. Some stoves that burn biomass pellets, such as fan gasifier stoves, can also be considered clean if they are used correctly and the pellets have low moisture levels. However, these stoves are not widely available.

Electricity can power many cooking appliances, including electric pressure cookers, rice cookers, and efficient induction stoves, in addition to standard electric stoves. Electric induction stoves are very efficient and produce less pollution than LPG, even when powered by coal. They can also be cheaper for cooking certain foods like stews, beans, and rice in pressure cookers. As of 2019, 770 million people lack access to electricity, and for many others, electricity is not affordable or reliable. Because electricity access is also a key global goal, plans to build new or improved electricity systems that include cooking needs are becoming more common. These plans may help solve both electricity access and clean cooking challenges more quickly and at lower cost.

Natural gas stoves, commonly used in wealthier countries, still pose health risks. They release high amounts of nitrogen dioxide, a harmful air pollutant linked to reduced lung function and oxidative stress. Studies on the effects of indoor cooking with natural gas have shown mixed results. A 2010 review of many studies suggests that this practice may slightly reduce lung function in children, and children with allergies might be more affected.

Biogas digesters use waste, such as human waste and animal manure, to create a clean-burning methane gas. These systems may work well in areas where households have at least two large animals to provide manure and have a steady water supply.

Solar cookers use sunlight to collect and focus heat for cooking when the sun is shining.

Improved cook stoves

Improved cook stoves (ICS), also called "clean cookstoves," are stoves that use biomass fuel, such as wood or charcoal, but burn it more efficiently than traditional stoves or open fires. These stoves use less fuel and aim to reduce the harmful effects of smoke and fumes that can harm health. They can use 20-75% less fuel than traditional stoves and produce much less dangerous smoke. However, as of 2016, no widely available biomass stove met the World Health Organization (WHO) standards for clean cooking. A 2020 study found only one biomass stove on the market that met WHO standards when tested in real-world conditions.

Even though ICS have limits, they are a useful temporary solution in areas where fully clean cooking methods, like electricity or gas, are not easily available. In 2009, less than 30% of people who used biomass stoves had access to ICS. These stoves are more efficient, which means users spend less time collecting fuel, helps reduce deforestation, and lowers air pollution. However, some closed stove designs may produce more soot and tiny particles than open fires. Certain stove designs also help prevent burns by keeping fires contained.

While ICS use less fuel, their health benefits depend on the situation. For example, for conditions like childhood pneumonia, the relationship between pollution levels and health effects is not directly proportional. This means reducing pollution by 50% may not cut health risks by half. A 2020 review found that using ICS led to small improvements in blood pressure, breathing difficulties, cancer-causing emissions, and heart-related issues, but did not improve pregnancy outcomes or children’s health.

Tests of cookstoves show wide differences in emissions and fuel use across stove designs and between lab and real-world conditions. There is no standard way to test stoves or describe exposure levels accurately. Studies on stove performance often vary depending on the background and expertise of the researchers.

The World Health Organization supports more research to create biomass stoves that are low in emissions, affordable, long-lasting, and meet the needs of users.

Non-technological interventions

Behavioral changes can lower household air pollution exposure by 20–98%. Indoor Air Pollution (IAP) can be reduced by cooking outside, spending less time near the cooking area, leaving the kitchen door open while cooking, avoiding leaning over the fire during meal preparation, not cooking while carrying children, and keeping children away from the cooking area. Environmental changes, such as using a chimney, drying fuel wood before burning, and covering pots while cooking, can also reduce harmful effects.

Teaching communities about reducing indoor air pollution can happen through festivals, religious gatherings, and medical clinics. Community health workers are a valuable resource for educating people and increasing awareness about reducing the dangers of indoor air pollution.

Challenges

Many people who use clean stoves and fuels also often use traditional fuels and stoves. This is called "fuel stacking" or "stove stacking." For example, a recent study in Kenya found that families who mainly use LPG (a clean fuel) use about 42% as much charcoal as families who mainly use charcoal (a traditional fuel).

When people use both clean and traditional fuels or stoves together, adding clean cooking tools may not lower indoor air pollution enough to improve health. Some reasons people continue using traditional fuels and stoves include: difficulty getting clean fuel, the cost of clean fuel, the ability of traditional stoves to work with different types of pots and cooking methods, and the long distances needed to repair broken stoves.

Plans to increase access to clean cooking fuels and stoves have not kept up with population growth. Even with current and future plans, about 2.4 billion people are expected to still lack access to clean cooking in 2030.

2023 Reports on Clean Cooking Access

The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) published a report in 2023 showing slow progress in providing clean cooking access to all people. In 2021, 2.3 billion people did not have access to clean cooking, and this number may still be about 1.9 billion by 2030. The report highlights the need for more money and better policies to support clean cooking technologies powered by renewable energy, such as biogas and bioethanol. These technologies are important for health, the environment, and fighting climate change but are often ignored compared to fossil fuel options like LPG. The report shares lessons from parts of Africa and Asia and suggests a new strategy to meet growing needs and match global goals for sustainable development. It stresses the importance of increasing the use of renewable clean cooking solutions through focused actions.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) released a 2023 report stating that achieving universal clean cooking access by 2030 is very important and urgent. This goal is essential for health, fairness, and protecting the environment. The IEA estimates that $8 billion each year is needed to close funding gaps and increase the use of cleaner cooking technologies, such as electric stoves and improved cookstoves, especially in areas with high need, like sub-Saharan Africa. The report says that this investment could prevent 2.5 million early deaths, create 1.5 million jobs, and greatly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The IEA says that the right to clean cooking is a basic human right and that meeting this goal is necessary to help the world move toward a more sustainable and fair future.

Environmental and sustainable development effects

Changing to cleaner cooking methods may slightly increase or decrease greenhouse gas emissions, even if the new fuels are fossil fuels. Evidence shows that switching to LPG and PNG produces fewer climate effects than burning solid fuels, which release methane and black carbon. Burning solid fuels in homes contributes up to 58% of global black carbon emissions. Moving to clean cooking solutions reduces methane and other greenhouse gas emissions from basic stoves by 0.9 gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent and helps reduce deforestation, saving 0.7 gigatonnes by 2030. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported in 2018 that achieving nearly universal access to electricity and clean fuels for cooking and heating is expected to cost between 72 and 95 billion USD annually until 2030, with little impact on greenhouse gas emissions.

Universal access to clean cooking is part of the UN Sustainable Development Goal 7, which aims to ensure affordable, reliable, and modern energy services for all by 2030. Progress in clean cooking supports other goals, including ending poverty (Goal 1), improving health (Goal 3), advancing gender equality (Goal 5), and taking climate action (Goal 13). A key indicator for Goal 7 is the percentage of the population relying mainly on clean fuels and technologies for cooking, heating, and lighting, as defined by the World Health Organization.

Reuters reported in 2025 that the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market approved three clean cookstove methods under its Core Carbon Principles benchmark.