For decades, "natural gas" has sold itself to families as the fastest, most-efficient way to cook. But now there's a battle for your kitchen stove, and a push to get you to embrace electric for your health and for the planet.
A coalition of chefs, doctors, climate scientists and real estate developers have joined forces to push back against the gas industry's marketing, with the aim of removing gas from kitchens worldwide.
Campaigners say in addition to heating the climate, gas stoves contribute to asthma and other health conditions.
And that coalition thinks that if they can rid kitchens of gas, they'll rid homes of the fossil fuel altogether.
The Global Cooksafe Coalition is being launched in Sydney today and announcing partnerships with developers Lendlease and GPT, who have agreed to stop putting any gas in new buildings by 2030 and to retrofit existing buildings by 2040.
"Our view is that the future is all electric, whether it's electric vehicles, whether it's cooking, whether it's space heating," said Davina Rooney, chief executive of the Green Building Council, and one of the founders of the Global Cooksafe Coalition.
The group was convened by member organisations including the Green Building Council of Australia, The European Public Health Alliance and the Climate Council.
Its launch partners are developers GPT and Lendlease, which together are responsible for more than $100 billion in development assets and funds under management.
Crucially for the developers involved, the launch was endorsed by top Australian chefs Neil Perry, James Edward Henry, James Lowe and Analiese Gregory.
"People don't have an emotional relationship with the heat pump, but they care about how the family cooks and lives," Ms Rooney said.
"That's why it's so important to have leading chefs out talking about why induction cooking is better for families, better for cooking, better for the planet."
One of the chefs backing the project is Danielle Alverez, who was the head chef at two-hatted Sydney restaurant Fred's until this year.
She says now that induction stove technology has improved, it's by far the best option for kitchens.
"It's faster, it's cleaner, it's less hot in terms of heating your space," Ms Alverez said.
Health risks front and centre
The Global Cooksafe Coalition puts the health risks of gas cooking at the centre of their pitch.
According to a 2018 paper published in the Medical Journal of Australia, 12 per cent of the burden of childhood asthma in Australia is due to indoor gas stoves.
And a 2013 paper combining the results of 41 other studies found children living in a home with a gas stove had a 42 per cent increased risk of having recent asthma symptoms.
There is also evidence that the pollutants released by gas stoves can affect the brain and heart, and increase susceptibility to allergens, said Kate Charlesworth, a public health physician and member of the Climate Council.
"I think a lot of parents would be shocked to learn that a child living with gas, cooking in the home has a comparable risk of asthma to a child living with household cigarette smoke," Dr Charlesworth said.
Brett Heffernan, the chief executive of gas lobby group Gas Energy Australia, argued there was no link between gas use in kitchens and asthma.
Mr Heffernan linked to a large 2013 study that did not find a link between cooking with gas and asthma.
Dr Charlesworth pointed out a larger and more recent meta-analysis combined the results of dozens of papers and included a reference to the 2013 paper cited by Mr Heffernan.
But the Global Cooksafe Coalition is also motivated by climate concerns.
Methane, the primary component of gas, is a powerful short-lived greenhouse gas which has more than 80 times the climate-warming power of carbon dioxide over 20 years.
"Australia has just committed to 30 per cent methane reduction by 2030 as part of a global coalition. This is a key way for us to move that forward," Ms Rooney said.
The ask
Stoves are not the biggest driver of gas use in homes, with heating and hot water the larger drivers.
But the gas industry has long emphasised the benefits of gas cooking with ads emphasising how "clean" and "controllable" it is.
Australia's gas lobby, the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association (APPEA), promotes gas cooking through a PR campaign it calls Bright-r.
It includes a whole cooking show called "The Chef's Secret".
APPEA was approached for comment but it declined.
Both the climate movement and the gas industry see decisions about how to cook as crucial.
"The gateway decision for whether you electrify or not is often down to cooking, even though it's a smaller part of the emissions," Ms Rooney said.
Lendlease said joining the Global Cooksafe Coalition made sense.
The company has been trying to reduce its absolute emissions to zero by 2040, and electrifying everything is a relatively easy move, said Ann Austin, head of sustainability at Lendlease Australia.
"The pathway for decarbonising our kitchen is pretty simple, to be honest," she said.
"It's just about choosing to go down that path."
