Clean Cooking
Cooking with fuels and stoves that produce little or no household air pollution.
SDG 7 Affordable & Clean EnergySDG 3 Good Health & Well-beingWhat is it?
Clean cooking means preparing food using energy sources and stoves — such as electricity, LPG, biogas, ethanol, or solar — that emit little smoke into the home.
Why does it matter?
Roughly 2 billion people still cook with polluting solid fuels over open fires, a leading cause of premature death and a heavy burden of unpaid fuel-gathering labour.
How does it work?
Cleaner fuels burn more completely than wood, dung, or charcoal, cutting fine particulate matter and carbon monoxide released at the point of cooking.
Who benefits?
Women and young children, who spend the most time near the hearth, gain the largest health and time savings, alongside broader climate and forest benefits.
Who may be disadvantaged?
Cleaner fuels usually cost more up front and per unit, so the poorest households can be priced out without subsidy or financing, and supply chains may be unreliable.
What evidence exists?
WHO attributes millions of deaths yearly to household air pollution; fuel switching clearly reduces exposure, though real-world health gains depend on exclusive, sustained use.
What tradeoffs exist?
Cleaner fuels improve health but can raise recurring costs and depend on fragile distribution; stove “stacking” (using old and new stoves together) blunts benefits.
Common misconceptions
A cleaner stove alone does not guarantee clean air — households often keep using the old fire too, so displacement of dirty fuels matters more than the new device.
What you can do next
Explore how improved cookstoves and cleaner fuels compare, and how they intersect with indoor air pollution.