Causes of Fuel Poverty
Fuel poverty is caused by a convergence of four factors:
- low income, which is often linked to absolute poverty
- high fuel prices, including the use of relatively expensive fuel sources (such as electricity in the UK, aggravated by higher tariffs for low-volume energy users)
- poor energy efficiency of a home, e.g. through low levels of insulation and old or inefficient heating systems
- under-occupancy: according to UK government statistics, on average those in the most extreme fuel poverty live in larger than average homes
The sharp rise in fuel prices from 2006-8 has led to an estimated doubling of the numbers in fuel poverty in countries where it is a major problem.
A number of illnesses, including cancer can exacerbate fuel poverty.
Read more about this topic: Fuel Poverty
Famous quotes containing the words fuel and/or poverty:
“It is now many years that men have resorted to the forest for fuel and the materials of the arts: the New Englander and the New Hollander, the Parisian and the Celt, the farmer and Robin Hood, Goody Blake and Harry Gill; in most parts of the world, the prince and the peasant, the scholar and the savage, equally require still a few sticks from the forest to warm them and cook their food. Neither could I do without them.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is in an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob, and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.”
—Frederick Douglass (c. 1817–1895)