Household Energy in Developing Countries: A Burning Issue

This policy brief from the Stockholm Environment Institute examines the public health and environmental crises caused by the reliance of over three billion people on traditional biomass for household energy, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

• More than three billion people globally depend on traditional solid fuels—including wood, dung, and agricultural residues—for basic energy needs. This reliance leads to indoor air pollution levels that exceed international standards, with typical 24-hour Particulate Matter (PM10) levels ranging from 300 to 3,000 micrograms per cubic metre.
• Indoor smoke from traditional biomass is a major health hazard, causing an estimated 1.6 million annual deaths, primarily among women and children. Exposure doubles the risk of pneumonia and acute lower respiratory infections in children and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in adults; women using these fuels are three times more likely to suffer from COPD than those using gas or electricity.
• The use of traditional biomass for cooking contributes approximately 18 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, specifically through black carbon (soot). Because black carbon remains in the atmosphere for only a few weeks, reducing these emissions via improved or smokeless stoves could quickly diminish its warming effect.
• The daily global demand for cooking fuel exceeds 2 million tonnes of biomass. In ecologically fragile areas, the harvesting of live trees for this purpose results in desertification and soil erosion.
• The transition to cleaner fuels like ethanol or LPG and more efficient stoves has stalled in many developing countries, and the number of households relying on traditional biomass is expected to increase. The Millennium Project has set a target to enable modern fuel use for 50 per cent of traditional biomass users by 2015.
• Effective interventions to improve household energy require detailed consumer choice analyses. A study in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, demonstrated that socioeconomic factors like income, age, and gender are insufficient for identifying target markets; product-specific attributes such as smokiness and perceived safety must also be addressed.

APA

Lambe, F., & Johnson, F. X. (n.d.). Household Energy in Developing Countries: A Burning Issue. Stockholm Environment Institute. https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Projects/Climate/household_energy_pb_090603_fxj.pdf

Chicago

Lambe, Fiona, and Francis X. Johnson. Household Energy in Developing Countries: A Burning Issue. Stockholm Environment Institute, n.d. https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Projects/Climate/household_energy_pb_090603_fxj.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Lambe |first1=Fiona |last2=Johnson |first2=Francis X. |title=Household Energy in Developing Countries: A Burning Issue |publisher=Stockholm Environment Institute |url=https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Projects/Climate/household_energy_pb_090603_fxj.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{lambendhousehold, author = {Lambe, Fiona and Johnson, Francis X.}, title = {{Household Energy in Developing Countries: A Burning Issue}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, url = {https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Projects/Climate/household_energy_pb_090603_fxj.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }