By Dr Rihab Khalid
In a world grappling with rising temperatures, urban heat stress is emerging as a critical challenge, with cities across Asia and Africa bearing the brunt, where the convergence of climate change, rapid urbanisation, and the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect amplify extreme heat risks. By 2030, an estimated 1.9 billion people will face hazardous heat levels. Urban areas are not only natural heat traps due to dense infrastructure and limited vegetation, but also amplify the impacts of this ‘silent killer’ through daily human activities—cooking being a significant, yet often overlooked contributor. This blog post highlights key insights from a recent landscape study (Harnessing Modern Energy Cooking Services to Mitigate Urban Heat Stress) on how Modern Energy Cooking Services (MECS) can play a pivotal role in mitigating urban heat stress, especially for vulnerable urban populations.
Cooking heat: the overlooked culprit
While much attention has been given to urban heat from transportation and building design, cooking-related heat emissions remain largely underexplored. Traditional cooking practices, particularly in low-income and informal settlements, rely heavily on biomass and fossil fuels and account for about 3.5% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Moreover, biomass cooking is a major source of black carbon (soot), a potent global warming agent, and significantly contributes to raising both indoor and outdoor temperatures.
Studies show that kitchens can be among the most thermally stressed spaces in buildings. The landscape study highlights how poor ventilation in densely populated urban settings traps smoke and intense heat: cooking can elevate kitchen temperatures by 10°C, compounding discomfort and health risks, particularly for women responsible for cooking. A multi-country review found that 87% of household kitchens exceeded thermal comfort standards, with some reaching over 30°C and 80% humidity—conditions that can trigger heat exhaustion, heat stroke and other severe health problems.
Informal settlements face the harshest challenges with dense housing, minimal green space, and inadequate infrastructure exacerbating heat stress. In densely populated informal settlements, many residents cook outdoors to reduce indoor smoke, however, direct exposure to sunlight and the combined effect of numerous households cooking outdoors simultaneously can lead to localised increases in ambient temperature and air pollution, resulting in a vicious cycle of heat and health hazards for the entire community. Fuel insecurity, legal constraints, and the day-to-day realities of poverty perpetuate dependence on unclean fuels, turning kitchen heat into a persistent threat.
Institutional and commercial cooking environments also contribute significantly to urban heat stress. Large-scale operations in schools, hospitals, and commercial kitchens produce substantial heat emissions, impacting both workers and surrounding communities. For instance, a study of New York City public schools found that 80% of kitchens exceeded heat exposure limits for heavy work, while research in Lesotho highlighted how firewood used in schools resulted in hot, polluted, and unhealthy conditions. Street food vendors and small businesses cooking outdoors face similarly elevated temperatures, often without adequate cooling solutions. Prolonged exposure to these high temperatures diminishes productivity and raises the risk of heat exhaustion, heat stroke, and even kidney disfunctions. These findings underscore the urgency of addressing cooking-related heat in both domestic and institutional urban settings.
Heat, health and urban cooking: the missing links
Cooking generates both heat and pollutants, posing considerable health risks —especially in high-heat methods like frying or grilling. Biomass-fuelled cooking can produce pollutant levels up to five times higher than cleaner fuel options, intensifying both pollution and heat exposure in enclosed spaces.
The health and heat impacts of cooking depend on multiple factors: fuel type, technology, cooking methods, and kitchen design. Stove efficiency and heat loss hinge on combustion processes, while ventilation systems determine how heat and pollutants disperse, directly influencing thermal comfort. Heat vulnerability is also unevenly distributed. Children, older adults, and women—who often bear the brunt of cooking responsibilities—are at greater risk of heat-related illness. Socio-economic constraints compound these disparities, as lower-income households are less likely to access clean cooking technologies or implement preventive measures. These factors collectively illustrate the complex interplay between cooking practices, heat stress, and health impacts. Despite the severity of these challenges, they are rarely addressed in urban resilience strategies. Targeted interventions that combine technological solutions for health and thermal comfort with socio-economic measures are urgently needed to address this oversight.
The potential of modern energy cooking
Modern cooking technologies—such as Electric Pressure Cookers (EPCs) and induction stoves— can offer a potential pathway to mitigate cooking-related heat stress in urban environments by reducing heat loss and health risks, improving energy efficiency, and lowering ambient kitchen temperatures. For example, research from Japan shows that gas stoves in commercial and institutional kitchens create localised hotspots exceeding 40°C, while electric kitchens remain 7-8°C cooler by avoiding the residual heat generated by gas burners. Open-flame environments also demand more cooling and can limit the use of fans. Further, appliances like EPCs combine pressurisation, automation, and insulation to maintain safer indoor temperatures, minimise supervision and shorten cooking duration, thus reducing the risk of heat stress.
Despite their potential, cooking practices often go unaddressed in urban heat research and policy. To harness the benefits of MECS, energy policymakers, researchers, and urban planners should prioritise:
- Quantifying cooking-related heat emissions: understanding how various cooking technologies contribute to urban heat will help tailor interventions to specific urban contexts.
- Evaluating health and gender co-benefits: measuring in well-being, particularly for women and vulnerable groups, will support evidence-based policies.
- Integrating cooking into urban planning: aligning clean cooking initiatives with sustainable building and urban design can reduce cooling loads and enhance overall thermal comfort.
- Developing socio-technical interventions: adoption strategies must reflect cultural practices, cooking behaviours and social dynamics to ensure inclusive solutions for diverse urban households.
As urbanisation accelerates, the need to tackle heat stress becomes ever more urgent. Clean cooking technologies offer a critical opportunity to reduce both heat and pollution, promoting healthier and more equitable urban environments. However, fully realising this potential requires a new perspective on urban heat resilience—one that recognises the role of cooking in shaping thermal conditions.
MECS’ recently published a landscape study and an accompanying policy brief calling on researchers, policymakers, and development planners to integrate clean cooking into broader urban heat mitigation strategies. Doing so can create synergies that enhance climate resilience and contribute to sustainable cities.
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Featured Image: Image copyright of Centre for Research in Energy and Energy Conservation (CREEC), Uganda.