The ICLEI Indonesia Office has recently completed a study on urban fuel stacking in Mataram City and Sumbawa Regency, Indonesia, helping analyze the factors driving cooking fuel choices in both areas. The study was completed under the UKAid-funded Modern Energy Cooking Services (MECS) programme.

Around 2.6 billion people in the world still cook using polluting open fires, or simple stoves running on dirty fuel such as kerosene, biomass (e.g. wood, animal dung, crop waste), and coal. However, exposure to fumes from these can cause various health problems, including pneumonia, stroke, ischaemic heart disease, and cancer, killing 3.8 million people every year. This, on top of the air pollution generated by such cooking methods.

While people in general have been getting steadier and more reliable access to clean cooking methods using LPG, electricity, and the like, the practice of fuel stacking—or using both clean and dirty fuel—is still commonplace, especially among lower-income households in Indonesia. Hence, this study aimed to identify the driving factors of such phenomena while also exploring the reasons for fuel stacking in locations that are identified as low-income and peri-urban.

With the mainstreaming of climate change in every country’s development plans, understanding the dynamics of clean-cooking fuels and how to sustainably transition to clean cooking will be crucial in formulating clean-energy strategies. This sector will play an important role in the clean energy transition strategy to meet sustainable development goals (particular Goal No. 7 – Affordable and Clean Energy) and to provide secure and flexible cooking fuels to households

Access the full study HERE.