NewTech Energy
Clean cooking
Mainstream
Cooking with gas, electricity or biogas instead of an open wood fire. Three in four people already do; for the rest, the barrier is price.
deaths a year attributed to household air pollution (2021), over 309,000 of them children under 5: the toll clean cooking can push back.
What problem it solves
Smoke from cooking on wood, charcoal or kerosene, which poisons the air at home and hits women and children first.
The limits
Every technology has them. A sheet without limits would be a sales pitch.
- Price: over half of households without clean cooking cannot afford it on an ongoing basis, according to the IEA (2023).
- LPG, the world's most used cooking fuel (3.4 billion people), is fossil and exposed to shocks: according to the IEA (July 2026), the closure of the Strait of Hormuz put it out of reach for many African households.
- Electric cooking needs electricity: 655 million people have none, 86% of them in sub-Saharan Africa (UN, 2024 data).
- In real kitchens, neither 'improved' wood stoves nor even clean fuels always bring the air down to WHO limits, partly because of neighbours' smoke: whole neighbourhoods have to switch (Pope et al., 2017).
- In sub-Saharan Africa, population grows faster than access, and about a third of the 2.2 billion dollars pledged in 2024 has been paid out (IEA, July 2026).
From wood fire to gas and hotplate: the journey of clean cooking
The solutions have long existed; what moves slowly is getting them to the poorest.
About 3 billion people cook without a clean fuel or stove.
DeploymentWHO sets emission limits: only stoves that meet them truly cut the health risk.
DeploymentThe UN aims for modern energy for all by 2030; access to clean cooking becomes an official indicator.
Deployment75% of humanity has access to clean cooking; a billion fewer people than in 2010 rely on polluting fuels. In Paris, 2.2 billion dollars are pledged for Africa.
MainstreamAbout 2 billion people still cook over fire or polluting stoves, smoke linked to some 2.9 million deaths a year. In sub-Saharan Africa, where access is only 22%, population grows faster than access.
MainstreamUN - Sustainable Development Goals Report 2026, Goal 7; IEA; WHO ↗
Sources
- WHO - Household air pollution and health (16 December 2025) ↗ consulted October 9, 2026
- UN - Sustainable Development Goals Report 2026, Goal 7 ↗ consulted October 9, 2026
- IEA - Clean Cooking in Africa 2026, executive summary (9 July 2026) ↗ consulted October 9, 2026
- IEA - A Vision for Clean Cooking Access for All, executive summary (2023) ↗ consulted October 9, 2026
- WHO - emission benchmarks for household stoves (12 November 2014) ↗ consulted October 9, 2026
- UN - Sustainable Development Goal 7 ↗ consulted October 9, 2026
- Pope et al., Environment International 101, 2017 (University of Liverpool repository) ↗ consulted October 9, 2026