Trapped in politics

As essential as bread: Fuelwood use as a cultural practice to cope with energy poverty in Europe

“…Solid fuel users are over-represented in low-income deciles [89] and among households living in the low energy efficiency singlefamily houses built before the 1990s [90]. Solid fuel heating is also prevalent among Hungarian Roma communities [91]. Many households heating with solid fuels in Hungary use individual heaters such as inefficient metal stoves resulting in low and uneven levels of thermal comfort [90].…”

“…Instead, the "Social Fuel Wood Program" introduced in 2011, provides direct in-kind support -often in the form of free firewood or coal -to households living in municipalities with a population of up to 5000. This scheme has been criticized because of the low quality of the fuels provided (e.g., wet firewood and poor-quality coal) in some locations and also because of the arbitrariness and clientelism in its distribution across municipalities [91]. Finally, 50-60 % of the total fuelwood consumed in Hungary is of unknown origin and potentially sourced from illegal logging because the sum of domestic fuelwood, energy crops production, and fuelwood imports does not match the total quantity of fuelwood used [89,[92][93][94].…”