Clean cookstoves raise cooking operating costs by US$1.96–4.38 trillion over the stove lifetime because many families collect fuel for free (albeit with heavy labor costs, particularly for women and girls) and/or polluting fuels are cheaper than cleaner options, but the adverse socioeconomic impacts of not using clean cooking fuels are high. If policies for promoting clean cooking worldwide are aggressively implemented, guided by the UN Sustainable Development Goal of universal access to clean energy, carbon dioxide equivalent emissions can be reduced by 31.38–76.34 gigatons at a net first cost of US$136.64–302.76 billion. As of 2020, an estimated 43 percent of families in low- and middle-income countries were mainly using cookstoves fueled by traditional wood or coal stoves for cooking, with concomitant health and environmental effects.
