Resilient Innovation and the Pursuit of Universal Access to Clean Cooking in Subsistence Environments: A Review

Household Air Pollution (HAP) from solid cooking fuels still poses a critical global health and development challenge, especially in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs).This review synthesizes evidence from international agency reports and peer-reviewed literature to examine how resilient innovation can enable sustainable clean cooking transitions in subsistence environments.Using a narrative -scoping review approach, the paper evaluates modern energy cooking solutions (MECS), including LPG, electric cooking (eCooking), biofuels and advanced biomass technologies, focussing on health, affordability, emissions and adoption outcomes.Evidence indicates that while national LPG programs such as India's PMUY -deliver substantial short-term welfare gains, long-term resilience requires diversified, multi-fuel strategies adapted to local infrastructure, cultural practices, and market conditions.Emerging innovations, including bottled biogas systems, advanced combustion cookstoves, and IoT enabled indoor air quality monitoring, offer complementary pathways but show heterogeneous real-world performance.The review concludes that framing clean cooking as a resilience challenge rather than a single-technology intervention provides a more robust pathway toward universal access, economic development, and climate mitigation.