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.
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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)
“Public money is like holy water; everyone helps himself to it.”
—Italian proverb, pt. 5, epigraph, Graham Hancock, Lords of Poverty (1989)