Exploring the determinants of the evolution of urban and rural household carbon footprints inequality in China

Households are key actors in mitigating climate change and their carbon footprints are unequally distributed due to differences in the scale and patterns of consumption. This study separately estimates household carbon footprints inequality in urban and rural areas of China from 2012 to 2018 and identifies the factors contributing to the evolution of the inequality by applying environmentally extended multiregional input-output analysis, unconditional quantile regression and Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition. The results show that the largest emission growth occurred among the 50th–80th percentile of urban emitters and the highest rural emitters. The Gini coefficient of urban household carbon footprints decreased from 0.463 to 0.439, whereas that of rural household carbon footprints increased from 0.447 to 0.459. Notably, the changes of household characteristics exacerbated carbon inequality, with income growth, increased car ownership, and smaller household size being the three primary factors, while the changes in consumption preferences and technological advancements reduced carbon inequality. The latter are dominant in urban households and the former are dominant in rural households. To mitigate climate change and reduce inequality, the government should not only encourage high-emitting households to adopt greener low-carbon consumption and lifestyles, but also promote low-carbon technology innovation to reduce carbon intensity.