Electric Cooking Appliances
E-cooking appliances are healthier and more sustainable than alternatives like gas stoves and biomass cookstoves.
Everything you need to know about electric cooking appliances
Electric cooking (sometimes called e-cooking) appliances heat food using electricity instead of combustible fuels like natural gas and biomass. (Biomass is fuel that comes from plant or animal sources; wood and animal dung are examples commonly used to heat food.)
A wide range of electric cooking products can be found around the world. This includes everything from induction stoves (also known as hobs) and ovens to electric pressure cookers, rice cookers, kettles, microwave ovens, and air fryers.
Where are electric cooking appliances used?
Over the years, electric cooking technologies have evolved to meet different regional and cultural needs as well as culinary preferences.
Despite this, only a quarter of the world’s population uses electricity as a primary cooking fuel.1
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 50% of the global population currently relies on gas2 as a primary cooking fuel. Meanwhile, an estimated 2.4 billion people around the world use kerosene or biomass as fuel, cooking over open fires or relying on highly inefficient cookstoves.3
Cooking technologies vary widely by geography and income level. In high-income nations, small e-cooking appliances like rice cookers and microwaves are common, but they’re often used alongside cooktops and ovens that burn gas. In low- and middle-income countries, e-cooking appliances are less widespread.
Is cooking with electric appliances healthier than using gas stoves (hobs) or burning biomass?
E-cooking is safer than alternatives that rely on fuel combustion—so much so that a global transition to electric cooking could save millions of lives every year.4 Women and children, in particular, benefit from shifting to e-cooking, as they’re disproportionately responsible for preparing food.5
Reduced indoor air pollution is a critical health benefit of e-cooking appliances. (It’s important to note that one harmful air pollutant, particulate matter, can be produced when cooking with both electric and non-electric fuel sources, since it comes from burning food.6)
Cooking with gas has been shown to release chemicals like nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and benzene into homes, leading to increased risk of diseases like asthma and cancer.7,8,9,10 Gas appliances can also leak health-damaging chemicals like carbon monoxide (CO) and benzene into the air even when they’re turned off.11,12
Cooking with biomass and kerosene also creates air pollution that has been linked to health problems ranging from heart disease and strokes to cancer.13 According to the World Health Organization, 3.2 million people die prematurely every year because of pollution caused by incomplete combustion while cooking with solid fuels and kerosene.14
E-cooking appliances also carries less risk of burns, fires, and explosions than other cooking methods since electric appliances don’t have open flames or use combustible fuel. In the UK, the government recorded a gas-related fire or explosion almost every day between 2015 and 2022, resulting in almost 700 people being injured or killed.15
How do electric cooking appliances benefit the planet?
E-cooking appliances have many environmental advantages compared to combustion-based alternatives, including producing fewer greenhouse gases and preventing deforestation (when they replace wood and charcoal cooking fuels).
In fact, if everyone on the planet switched to electric cooking by 2040, cooking-related greenhouse gas emissions would fall by 40% compared to 201816 levels.
Today, a significant amount of these emissions come from burning biomass to heat food. According to a study conducted in 2009, the combination of incomplete burning of biomass and unsustainable harvesting of wood for fuel (both activities that occur partly in support of cooking) accounts for roughly 2% of total greenhouse gas emissions17—equivalent to driving approximately 280,000,000 gasoline-powered passenger vehicles for a year.18
Moving away from gas stoves (hobs) is also vital to decarbonization in countries where these appliances are common. Today, many cities have massive networks of pipelines that bring natural gas—which is primarily composed of methane, a potent greenhouse gas—to every building with a kitchen. Transitioning to e-cooking appliances like induction stoves is an important step toward disconnecting these buildings from gas lines and powering all services with electricity.
CLASP has identified 10 appliances critical to fighting climate change and improving people's lives. Electric cooking appliances are one.
[Photo: CLASP]
[Photo: CLASP]
[Photo: Shutterstock]
What is the solution?
- Increasing access to electric cooking appliances around the world will protect public health, lower climate emissions from cooking, and accelerate building decarbonization.
How can we achieve this?
Governments
- Develop, promote, and incentivize the production and adoption of energy-efficient electric cooking appliances.
- Invest in and increase access to renewable energy options for homes and business to power electric cooking sustainably.
- Increase national awareness of the net benefits of efficient, clean electric cooking, as well as the health and environmental risks of cooking with gas or biomass.
- Set policies to phase out the production, trade, and sale of inefficient gas and biomass cooking.
- Use labels to indicate and promote the most efficient and least polluting models.
- Ensure building standards and codes provide efficient electric cooking as the default.
- Incorporate cooking into building decarbonization and retrofit policies.
- Lower the cost of electricity relative to gas.
Electric cooking manufacturers
- Invest in research and development to improve the efficiency, affordability, and climate-friendliness of electric cooking appliances to match global best practice.
- Phase down the production and sale of gas cooking appliances and challenge competitors to do the same.
- Lobby governments for more favorable policies to incentivize the uptake of electric cooking.
Consumers and consumer groups
- Choose the most efficient electric cooking appliance you can afford to lower your total cost of ownership over time, improve health, reduce your carbon footprint, and enjoy faster cooking times.
- Advocate to increase national awareness of the net benefits of efficient clean electric cooking, as well as the health and environmental risks of cooking with gas or biomass.
- Contact government representatives to request ambitious efficiency policies for all appliances.
Recent News
Are you a policymaker working on electric cooking appliances? Explore CLASP's free tools:
Net Zero Appliances NDC Toolkit
- Learn how (and why) to maximize the potential of appliance efficiency in NDCs.
World's Best MEPS: Tracking Leaders in Appliance Energy Efficiency Standards
- Find the world’s most ambitious energy performance standards for six key appliances and equipment.
Mepsy: The Appliance & Equipment Climate Impact Calculator
- Analyze efficiency policy options for key appliances across 162 countries.
CLASP's work on electric cooking appliances impacts:
0. ”Net Zero Heroes: Scaling Efficient Appliances for Climate Mitigation, Adaptation, and Resilience,” CLASP, November 2023. https://www.clasp.ngo/report/net-zero-heroes/executive-summary/.
1. ”Cooking fuels: population with primary reliance on fuels and technologies for cooking, by fuel type (in millions),” World Health Organization, July 1, 2024. https://www.who.int/data/gho/data/indicators/indicator-details/GHO/population-with-primary-reliance-on-fuels-and-technologies-for-cooking-by-fuel-type.
2. ”Tracking SDG7: The Energy Progress Report 2022,” ESMAP, 2022. https://trackingsdg7.esmap.org/data/files/download-documents/sdg7-report2022-full_report.pdf.
3. ”Net Zero Heroes: Scaling Efficient Appliances for Climate Mitigation, Adaptation, and Resilience,” CLASP, November 2023. https://www.clasp.ngo/report/net-zero-heroes/executive-summary/.
4. ”Net Zero Heroes: Scaling Efficient Appliances for Climate Change Mitigation, Adaptation, and Resilience,” CLASP, November 2023. https://www.clasp.ngo/report/net-zero-heroes/spotlights/spotlight-on-electric-cooking/.
5. “Clearing the Air: Gas Cooking and Pollution in European Homes,” CLASP, November 8, 2023. https://www.clasp.ngo/research/all/cooking-with-gas-findings-from-a-pan-european-indoor-air-quality-field-study/.
6. ”Gas Cooking Appliances Cause Regular Pollution Breaches in Homes Across Europe,” November 8, 2023. https://www.clasp.ngo/updates/gas-cooking-appliances-regular-pollution-breaches-homes-europe/.
7. ”Exposure and health risks of benzene from combustion by gas stoves in U.S. homes,” PSE, April 8, 2025. https://www.psehealthyenergy.org/work/exposure-and-health-risks-of-benzene-from-combustion-by-gas-stoves-in-u-s-homes/.
8. ”Electrifying Cooking in Europe,” CLASP, accessed July 8, 2025. https://www.clasp.ngo/cook-cleaner-europe/.
9. ”Exposure and health risks of benzene from combustion by gas stoves in U.S. homes,” PSE, April 8, 2025. https://www.psehealthyenergy.org/work/exposure-and-health-risks-of-benzene-from-combustion-by-gas-stoves-in-u-s-homes/.
10. ”Carbon Monoxide Poisoning Basics,” CDC, April 17, 2024. https://www.cdc.gov/carbon-monoxide/about/index.html.
11. Lebel, Eric et al. ”Composition, Emissions, and Air Quality Impacts Hazardous Air Pollutants in Unburned Natural Gas from Residential Stoves in California”, Environmental Science & Technology 56, no. 22 (2022). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.2c02581.
12. ”Household air pollution”, World Health Organization, October 16, 2024. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/household-air-pollution-and-health.
13. ”Household air pollution,” World Health Organization, October 16, 2024. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/household-air-pollution-and-health.
14. ”The Future of Cooking in Europe: Transitioning to Healthier, Cleaner and More Efficient Kitchens,” Environmental Coalition on Standards, June 14, 2024. https://ecostandard.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/The-Future-of-Cooking-in-Europe.pdf.
15. Floess et al., ”Scaling up gas and electric cooking low- and middle-income countries: climate threat or mitigation strategy with co-benefits?” Environmental Research Letters 18, no. 3 (2023). DOI 10.1088/1748-9326/acb501.
16. Robert Bailis et al., “The Carbon Footprint of Traditional Woodfuels,” Nature Climate Change 5, no. 3 (March 2015): 266–72, https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2491.
17. ”Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator,” United States Environmental Protection Agency, November 2024. https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gas-equivalencies-calculator#results.