Strait of Hormuz Standoff Puts Clean Cooking in South Asia at Risk

The recent closure of the Strait of Hormuz and substantial damage to energy infrastructure in the Persian Gulf region have sparked a global energy shock, with the South Asian countries being impacted the most. A crisis due to shortage in the supply of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), which is used primarily as a cooking fuel in urban and rural households, has occurred in India caused by to the disruption in imports from the Gulf region and the limited domestic production capacity. Many rural households and catering businesses temporarily reverted to traditional fuels for cooking, which compromised the human health benefits and undermined the air quality and climate gains achieved through the implementation of the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) scheme, the largest clean cooking program in the world. Instead of relying solely on LPG and natural gas, the supply of which depends heavily on imports, India needs to diversify its cooking fuel mix. Support should be provided to accelerate the transition from LPG to biogas in rural regions where abundant feedstock exists, whereas electric cooking, as an attractive and cost-effective option, should be promoted in urban and peri-urban areas with reliable grid infrastructure. Such a fuel mix would boost the sustainability and resilience of cooking energy, and further improve the climate/environmental and public health benefits of clean cooking in India. Similarly, other LPG-dependent South Asian countries also need to diversify the cooking fuel mix by including non-fossil resources alongside existing ones to boost overall energy security and harvest greater benefits from clean cooking.