Energy Crisis Pushes Families Back to Polluting Fuels

As fuel prices spike due to disruptions from the Iran war, families across Africa and South Asia are abandoning cleaner cooking fuels and reverting to charcoal and firewood—reversing years of public health and conservation progress while deepening inequality and environmental degradation.

In Nairobi's Kibera settlement, Brenda Obare now cooks over a charcoal burner outside her tin-roofed home because cooking gas is too expensive and often unavailable. "We don't have many options," she said. "You use what you can afford." Her situation reflects a broader crisis: governments had promoted cleaner fuels like liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) for health and conservation reasons, but rising costs are undermining those gains.

The Public Health and Environmental Toll

The human cost of this reversal is substantial. Air pollution killed 2.9 million people five years ago, according to the World Health Organization. Governments across Africa and South Asia had spent years trying to shift households away from burning charcoal and firewood to cleaner fuels, driven by concerns over air pollution and by conservation pressures—cutting trees faster than they grow back accelerates deforestation.

Charcoal, made by slowly burning wood in kilns, is one of the most widely used cooking fuels in sub-Saharan Africa and a major driver of deforestation. Demand is climbing among customers in Nairobi's low-income settlements, according to charcoal seller Munyao Kitheka. The shift is equally severe in South Asia: India is the world's second-largest LNG importer, with about 60% of its supply coming from the Gulf region, according to S&P Global.

In New Delhi's Bhalswa neighborhood, a poor area on the capital's outskirts, a social worker who goes by only one name spent years encouraging waste-picking families to adopt LPG. But with incomes below $3 a day, many can no longer afford pricier LPG cylinders and are reverting to stoves that burn firewood or returning to villages where wood is easier to find. "Things are very, very bad," she said.

Who Bears the Burden

The burden falls disproportionately on women and girls. Neha Saigal, a consultant with the environmental and social justice startup Asar Social Impact Advisors, said the shift places a heavier burden on women and girls who end up spending hours each day hunting for fuel, limiting their time for work or school. "Years of work went into making LPG aspirational. But a global issue like this can reverse some of those gains," she said.

As more people search for fuel in forests, they encounter wildlife. Economic pressures can also drive more poaching and bushmeat hunting, increasing the chance of diseases spreading from animals to people. Paula Kahumbu, a wildlife conservationist and CEO of Nairobi-based WildlifeDirect, said many families turn to firewood and charcoal when LPG, kerosene or electricity become too expensive or unreliable because they are easier to get in cash-poor settings, even though they harm the environment. "The first conservation risk from an energy shock in Africa is not abstract. It is household fuel switching," she said.

Rising demand for biomass fuels also degrades watersheds and wildlife habitats as people go deeper into previously undisturbed areas, increasing pressure on ecosystems and the species that depend on them. Experts fear rising diesel prices and higher fertilizer costs will also hurt farm productivity, reducing yields and increasing food insecurity.

Conservation Under Pressure

Mayukh Chatterjee, the International Union for Conservation of Nature's co-chair for its conflict and co-existence specialist group, warned of cascading effects on protected areas and field operations. "The longer this debacle runs, the harder it is going to hit conservation," he said.

Falling tourism means less funding for conservation, while high fuel costs make it harder for field teams to operate and respond quickly when wild animals enter human areas. Tourism contributes about 14% of the GDP in countries like Kenya and Tanzania, where it underpins park management, anti-poaching patrols and community conservation initiatives. Airlines are cutting routes to Africa, potentially hitting tourism as rising fuel prices raise travel costs. Disruptions to aviation routes through Middle Eastern hubs make access to some destinations more difficult. Even a modest drop in visitor numbers can have outsized effects in countries that rely on wildlife tourism to fund protected areas.

Kahumbu said, "Less tourism means less income for conservation initiatives, fewer rangers and more opportunistic poaching," adding that rising food and fuel costs could also push more people toward bushmeat as an affordable source of protein, increasing pressure on wildlife populations.

Conservation work in remote areas requires extensive and regular travel, often by motorbike or other vehicles, and higher fuel prices can disrupt that movement. Chatterjee noted that in cases of conflict between wildlife and people in South Asia, rapid deployment of forest staff and conservation teams is critical to secure the area, manage crowds and safely guide or tranquilize animals before situations escalate. Delays increase the risk of injury or death on both sides, and fuel shortages can slow response times.

Chatterjee cited an elephant conservation project in India's northeastern Assam state where eateries had reduced wood use as part of conservation efforts. He warned those gains could unravel as households shift back from LPG, which is produced from refining oil or natural gas. "That all risks going back to square one," he said.

What Policymakers Could Do

African governments have options to cushion the impact, but action has often lagged. Kahumbu called for protecting households from reverting to polluting fuels through targeted subsidies and stronger local supply chains and by backing local energy sources such as biogas, solar and geothermal. "Treat conservation as essential infrastructure during economic shocks," she said.

Why This Matters:

This energy crisis reveals how global shocks disproportionately harm the poorest households and most vulnerable ecosystems. When fuel becomes unaffordable, families earning under $3 a day face an impossible choice between health, environment, and survival. The reversal of years of conservation and public health progress demonstrates that market-driven energy transitions without social protection mechanisms leave low-income communities exposed. Women and girls face the heaviest burden, spending hours gathering fuel instead of working or attending school. The crisis also shows how interconnected challenges—energy, health, conservation, livelihoods, and gender equity—require coordinated policy responses. Without targeted government intervention through subsidies, investment in local renewable energy sources, and protection of essential services, the gains in reducing air pollution deaths and protecting forests risk unraveling, deepening both human suffering and environmental degradation across Africa and South Asia.