res

Domestic Energy Landscape

A Case of South Asia, Pakistan

Author: Mahum Ahmad, LABLAB (2025)

Climate Change and Heatwaves

Heatwaves are breaking records worldwide, as the magnitude of climate change is stirring at an alarming rate with its wide range of impacts across every region of the earth. It has emerged as one of the most pressing global challenges of the 21st century, manifesting as extreme temperatures that pose direct health risks and significantly escalate energy demand, particularly for cooling purposes. This surge in energy consumption is acutely felt in developing countries like Pakistan, where existing energy shortages compound the crisis, leading to widespread power cuts and a phenomenon known as "Cooling Poverty." This term encapsulates the struggle of households to afford adequate cooling, exacerbating socio-economic disparities.

Pakistan’s Climate Impact: Why Pakistan

Zooming in further, Pakistan stands at the forefront of this burgeoning global crisis, where the impacts of climate change have intensified, resulting in a surge of diseases and fatalities. It holds the position as the fifth most vulnerable nation worldwide. Particularly, urban areas like Jacobabad and Hyderabad face prolonged periods each year characterised by extreme conditions that challenge mere survival. The scorching temperatures not only render work impossible, leading to wage loss and perpetuating cycles of poverty, but also affect health. A significant portion of the populace resides in poorly ventilated structures without access to cooling systems. When temperatures soar beyond 45℃, individuals find it physiologically impossible to carry out their daily routines.

Gender and Domestic Energy Landscape

Within this context, the domestic energy landscape in Pakistan offers a compelling scope to explore the broader implications of energy insecurity. The situation is further complicated by gender inequality and entrenched cultural norms that confine women to their homes and disproportionately burden them with unpaid labour. This research aims to investigate these interconnected issues, focusing on how climate-induced energy crises amplify domestic hardships and deepen gender disparities in Pakistan.

In the Global Gender Gap Report of 2022, Pakistan has unfortunately been identified as the penultimate country, ranking 145th out of 146 nations, in terms of achieving gender equality. The report highlights the significant imbalance in the distribution of unpaid care duties, which include but are not limited to, child care, education, and the provision of care for elderly, ill, or disabled family members. In addition to these responsibilities, women and girls are tasked with household duties such as cooking, cleaning, and securing water and fuel resources. This demographic is compelled to allocate a considerable amount of their daily time, typically ranging from 12 to 16 hours, to these labour-intensive and frequently uncompensated tasks.

The domestic landscape uncovers the power dynamics, social norms and configurations within which women operate daily. Energy landscapes are co-constructions of geography and society that emerge from a network of material and social interactions. Domesticity and Energy bring about the phenomenology of the climate crisis, household power dynamics and gendered vulnerabilities at the surface. Domestic Energy Landscape is a multifaceted co-construction of space that encapsulates one’s comfort and ease and yet on the contrary entraps. Kitchens are run mostly by women in Pakistan, it is their space of power dynamics, a space which empowers and undermines their value and a place where they spend a significant amount of their day. The kitchen is a centre of political and economic struggle, subjectification, and victimhood in Pakistani womanhood because it sustains and reflects female-to-female inequities.

Women are the frontliners facing the adversities of climate change even within their personal space

A heat wave swept across Jacobabad, Pakistan’s ‘furnace ’ and one of the hottest cities in the world. The temperature hit 51 °C on May 14, 2022. Nazia, a young mother of five, was preparing lunch for her visiting cousins. But with no air conditioning or fan in her kitchen, she collapsed and was taken to a nearby hospital, where she was pronounced dead from a suspected heat stroke. Her body was taken the following day to her ancestral village to be buried, and her children, the youngest a one-year-old who was still breastfeeding, regularly cried for their mother. Unfortunately, Nazia is just another name in the sea of women affected daily.

Unlike men, women in the culture can not go outside to sit under the trees in the open sky to get some respite from the heat. They have to remain confined to their homes even at night when men sleep outside under the open sky, and women have to make do in their confined spaces without adequate ventilation. "We have no air-conditioning and our tin hut becomes so hot during the day, you can burn your hand touching it. The water pipes also heat up, so we can't even take cold showers”, says a rural woman.

Women's clothing acts as a heat trap. A six-yard-long sari wrapped several times around the torso or a flammable cloth veil worn is unbearably hot and hazardous. Women's core body temperatures recorded are about 1-2 degrees Celsius higher during summer noon. In rural areas, women and girls are disproportionately responsible for procuring food, water, and domestic energy resources in rural communities around the world. As the drought worsens and the trees burn, they must travel longer distances and spend more time gathering these resources. In India, analysis of death certificate data from a massive heatwave in Ahmedabad in 2010 shows women were far more likely to die than men. Another study by Umea University in Vadu, Pune, found that women had higher heat-related risks than men.

Water scarcity, one of the issues most exacerbated by climate change, disproportionately affects women, yet they are frequently excluded from decision-making processes. In water-scarce regions like Tharparkar in Sindh, women bear the burden of carrying an average of 90 litres over long distances, to meet their domestic needs, including cooking, drinking and washing, even during pregnancy. We see more cases of pre-term births in hot weather.

Domestic Energy Landscape

Imagine heatwaves have become a reality, and cooking every day is a necessity. This means a double heat strain for women who work tirelessly in a disadvantaged situation, putting themselves always at risk. An estimated three women per day succumb to fatalities attributed to "choola," colloquially termed stove death. Notably, stove bursts result in the most severe injuries, accounting for 52 % of the Total Body Surface Area. The demographic affected predominantly comprises young, uneducated female domestic workers, attired in loose clothing, who sustained injuries in the course of daylight activities at home, particularly in proximity to floor-level stoves. These individuals often lack awareness of fire safety measures and seldom receive prompt first aid, underscoring the urgency for targeted interventions and awareness campaigns.

Domesticity and women have been interlinked from primitive times, and throughout history, one does not belong without the other. In a similar fashion, the 19th century named this notion “The Cult of Domesticity”, where women were expected to remain in this private sphere and refrain from working or being engaged in the public sphere. It defined the important characteristics of a true woman; domesticity, or tending to the home and not deviating from chores such as cooking or cleaning, which were seen as being naturally feminine activities. Today, women in South Asia predominantly are in charge of the domestic landscape, cultural norms expect them to cook, clean and be homemakers.

In Pakistan, the kitchen assumes various appellations across local languages, such as 'baawarchikhana' in Urdu, Sindhi, and Punjabi, 'rasoi' in Punjab, and 'dalaan' in Balochi and Pashto. Barwarchikhana, functioning as a paradoxical domain, manifests as a space centred around women. South Asian women find themselves inherently thrust into, obligated to, and occasionally unable to extricate themselves from the cyclical responsibility of household caretaking.

Domesticity - Women - Kitchen - In Urban and Rural Settings

According to data published in the UN Women’s flagship, Progress of the World’s Women, 2019-2020, report: For every one hour a man spends on unpaid care and domestic work, Pakistani women spend 11 hours doing the same. The Baawarchikhana, is a space where women spend significant time in is reflective of their health and wellness.

Urban kitchens are typically furnished with a variety of electronic devices, including refrigerators, ovens, and cooktops. In the privileged urban context, however, an intriguing lifestyle choice that governs this particular design is the servant’s quarter. The case of underprivileged slums and middle-income households is different; the kitchen is usually a cramped space, large enough to allow for essential cooking in unventilated or mostly small holes for exhaust conditions.

Rural kitchens, in stark contrast, exhibit distinctive features such as handpumps, mud stoves, utensils crafted from steel, wood, and mud, deteriorated walls, bricks, open areas without roofing, stockpiles of cow dung cakes, mud partitions, pitchers, unmetalled dusty roads, and agricultural fields. Notably, many individuals in rural settings lack access to running water in their kitchens, relying instead on handpumps, often situated at a distance. Due to economic constraints and the limited availability of fuel in villages and small towns, solid fuel is employed for cooking, thereby exerting an environmental impact.

Women residing in urban environments are acutely familiar with the challenges posed by high temperatures within their meticulously constructed kitchens or urban slums, where living conditions, albeit superior to rural kitchens, become notably challenging due to inadequate ventilation. A discernible gender disparity in urban contexts is exemplified in cloth markets. Predominantly, women engage in domestic responsibilities within kitchens characterised by insufficient ventilation, whereas men occupy stores endowed with better environmental conditions, featuring amenities such as fans and air conditioners. This juxtaposition underscores the prevailing contrast in the environmental experiences of men and women within urban settings. The irony is in cloth markets where men sit in air conditioners and fans selling garments for women which end up being a fatal entrapment and exposing them to excessive heat resulting in a vicious cycle.

Beyond the evident socio-economic disparities, it is discernible that women encounter analogous underlying challenges in urban and rural contexts. The pervasive issues of elevated temperatures and suboptimal air quality carry profound implications that, if neglected, stand poised to escalate further, particularly in the face of challenges such as fuel and water shortages, compounded by the exacerbating effects of heat and various other contributing factors. A comprehensive understanding of these shared challenges is imperative for formulating effective interventions and policies that address the multifaceted concerns affecting women in diverse settings.

Energy and Domesticity and its affects

A report found that around 79.8 % of women lack access to clean cooking fuel with the burden of no access to modern energy being more on women than men. Indoor Air Pollution is directly linked to fuel availability and choices. Pakistan is an agricultural country, with nearly 64% of the population residing primarily in rural areas where access to commercial and clean energy resources is limited and traditional methods of using solid fuels (such as straw, shrubs, wood, grass, charcoal, animal waste and coal) are the only available options for domestic cooking fuel. According to the Pakistan Strategic Country Environmental Assessment by the World Bank, indoor air pollution accounts for 28,000 deaths per year and 40 million cases of acute respiratory illness.

In Pakistan, about 87% of rural homes and 13% of urban households use solid fuels for cooking, and when these fuels are burned in an open fire, they emit high concentrations of harmful pollutants and toxins; such as carbon monoxide, particulate matter, and sulphur and nitrogen oxides. According to estimates of the Global Burden of Disease Comparative Risk Assessment in 2010, almost 3.5 million premature deaths were caused by household cooking with biomass. A growing body of literature suggests that Indoor Air pollution contributes to many serious health problems, particularly respiratory infections and cancer.

The contribution of cookstoves to outdoor air pollution causes 500,000 fatalities worldwide (Limetal 2012). According to Brauer et al. (2012), 99% of the population in South and East Asia lives in locations where the WHO Air Quality Guideline for PM2.5 is exceeded. An intervention study in Pakistan exploring indoor particulate matter (PM) concentrations in developing nations found that PM was significantly higher in urban kitchens because rural kitchens were better ventilated than urban kitchens.

To be fair, not all of these variables are repeated in other tropical developing countries similarly. However, a lack of indoor sanitation, clean water, and electricity is common in many poor countries that are vulnerable to heat waves. Widespread poverty and frequent power cuts mean many people are unable to afford or use air conditioning or at times even a fan to cool down.

The tragic story of Nazia serves as an emblematic figure embodying the plight of women adversely affected as collateral consequences of inadequacies within energy systems and prevailing gender disparities. The absence of a comprehensive gender policy and strategy within the energy sector in Pakistan is indicative of a notable gap in addressing the specific needs and concerns of women in this critical domain.

Currently, there is a discernible dearth of systematic frameworks and initiatives tailored to promote gender equality, representation, and inclusion within the energy sector. The lack of a dedicated strategy underscores the potential oversight of crucial issues related to women's participation, employment, and empowerment within this sector. To bridge this gap and foster a more equitable and inclusive domestic energy landscape, there is an imperative need to formulate and implement a robust gender policy that comprehensively addresses the unique challenges faced by women, facilitates their meaningful engagement, and promotes gender-sensitive practices and opportunities within the energy sector in Pakistan.

Heat, Power and Women: Bridging the Energy Gap

Recurrent heat waves and the role of domestic energy services are a prime concern for supporting indoor cooling spaces and mitigating the impacts of extreme heat. Pakistan is one of the most populated countries in southern Asia, contributing approximately 2.56 % of the global population. The country experiences a major energy crisis due to expensive fuel sources, chronic natural gas and electricity shortages. Alarmingly, the country dependent on almost 50% of its energy consumption on Natural gas will have none left in 12 years.

The inclusion of women in policy-making, awareness of the vulnerabilities of women and empowering women through recognising and sharing their domestic burden are all initiatives that need to be taken on the grass-root level and by the government.

Rising temperatures and the urban population in South Asia have spun an out-of-control demand for cooling. The aggravated power cuts, spikes in electricity prices, gas shortages, and environmental impact-causing factors such as HFCs are the pinnacle reasons for women's trajectory as the vulnerable segments of society. Additionally, by 2050, energy use for cooling is projected to triple. IEA also recognises that the cooling demand will be driven mainly by Asian growing economies, while in hot countries like India, Pakistan, China, Brazil and Indonesia, it is expected to grow five-fold according to the World Bank.

References

1. Mazzone, A., et al. “Understanding Systemic Cooling Poverty.” *Nature Sustainability*, 2023. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-023-01221-6

2. Lefebvre, H. *Le Droit à la Ville*. Paris: Anthropos, 1968

3. Purcell, M. “Excavating Lefebvre: The Right to the City and Its Urban Politics of the Inhabitant.” *GeoJournal*, 2002. https://faculty.washington.edu/mpurcell/jua_rtc.pdf

4. Soja, E. “The City and Spatial Justice.” *Justice Spatiale | Spatial Justice*, no. 1, 2009. https://www.jssj.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/JSSJ1-1en4.pdf

5. “Understanding Thermal Justice and Systemic Cooling Poverty.” *Local Environment*, 2024. Taylor & Francis. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13549839.2024.2345610

6. DAWN. “World Bank Pakistan Energy Access Survey 2024.” *DAWN*, 2024. https://www.dawn.com

7. World Resources Institute. “The Perfect Storm Fueling Pakistan’s Solar Boom.” WRI Insights, 2025. https://www.wri.org/insights/pakistan-solar-energy-boom

8. Energy for Growth Hub. “Pakistan Distributed Solar: 4 No Regret Policy Actions.” 2025. https://energyforgrowth.org/article/pakistan-distributed-solar-4-no-regret-policy-actions/

9. The Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change. *2023 Report on Health and Climate Change*. 2023

10. Li, H., Bardhan, R., and Debnath, R. “Heatwave Interventions Must Reduce Invisible Gendered Challenges in the Global South.” *PLOS Global Public Health*, 2024. https://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0003625

12. IUCN. “Climate Change and Its Impact on Gender in Rural Areas of Sindh, Pakistan.” International Union for Conservation of Nature, 2016. https://iucn.org/news/commission-environmental-economic-and-social-policy/201608/climate-change-and-its-impact-gender-rural-areas-sindh-pakistan

13. “Inequality in Behavioural Heat Adaptation to Extreme Heat in New York City.” *The Lancet Planetary Health*, 2023. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37821159/

14. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. “What Are Heat Islands?” US EPA, 2025. https://www.epa.gov/heatislands/what-are-heat-islands

15. “Urban Heat Island Effect: Examining Spatial Patterns of Socio-Demographic Disparities.” *Cities & Health*, 2025. Taylor & Francis. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23748834.2025.2489854

16. Xu, C., et al. “Green Spaces Provide Substantial but Unequal Urban Cooling Globally.” *Nature Communications*, 2024. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-51355-0

17. Fresh Plaza. “Pakistan Faces 40% Post-Harvest Losses Due to Cold Storage Gap.” *Fresh Plaza*, March 2026. https://www.freshplaza.com/north-america/article/9822648/pakistan-faces-40-post-harvest-losses-due-to-cold-storage-gap/

18. Sustainable Energy for All. “Cooling for Food, Nutrition and Agriculture.” In *Chilling Prospects 2022*. https://www.seforall.org/chilling-prospects-2022/food-nutrition-and-agriculture

19. DAWN. “How Will Pakistan Stay Cool While Keeping Emissions in Check?” *DAWN*, 2022. https://www.dawn.com/news/1679958

20. Cool Heating Coalition. “Cooling as a Human Right: The Hidden Crisis of Summer Energy Poverty.” 2025. https://coolheatingcoalition.eu/2025/06/19/cooling-summer-energy-poverty-heatwave/

21. Housing Digital. “From Winter Chills to Summer Heat, Homes Are Turning Deadly.” *Housing Digital*, 2025. https://housingdigital.co.uk/from-winter-chills-to-summer-heat-homes-are-turning-deadly/

22. EU BUILD UP. “Tackling Energy Poverty in Europe’s Building Transition.” 2025. https://build-up.ec.europa.eu/en/resources-and-tools/articles/tackling-energy-poverty-europes-building-transition

23. Vanderbilt University. “Thermal Justice: New Report Examines Threat of Extreme Heat, Suggests Culturally Informed Policies.” Vanderbilt News, 2026. https://as.vanderbilt.edu/news/2026/03/11/thermal-justice-new-report-examines-threat-of-extreme-heat-suggests-culturally-informed-policies/

24. SEforAll – >1 billion people, 77 countries, 309m rural / 695m urban
Sustainable Energy for All. (2025). Chilling prospects: Tracking sustainable cooling for all 2025. https://www.seforall.org/data-stories/chilling-prospects-2025