IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolec/v213y2023ics092180092300215x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The characteristics and driving factors of household CO2 and non-CO2 emissions in China

Author

Listed:
  • Xie, Jun
  • Zhou, Shaojie
  • Teng, Fei
  • Gu, Alun

Abstract

Approximately 60% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are attributable to household consumption. This presents a great opportunity to reduce them. However, most research has focused only on CO2 emissions and paid limited attention to non-CO2 emissions which account for a quarter of household emissions. This study investigates key characteristics and driving factors associated with Chinese household emissions, which include CO2, CH4, N2O, and F-gases. Our work also combines detailed household survey data, GHG inventory, and input-output tables. The empirical results suggest that household GHG emissions per capita in 2015 were 2.74 tCO2eq, of which non-CO2 gases accounted for 27%, mainly from food (48%) and dwelling-related consumption (18%). Urban households emit 4.02 tCO2eq per capita—nearly twice that of rural households—and have a higher rate of non-CO2 emissions. Consumption expenditure is the primary driver of emissions differences between rural and urban households, while consumption structure only plays a minor role. The reduction in CO2 emissions resulting from urban homes switching from coal to natural gas has been offset by an increase in CH4 emissions from gas production and supply. These findings highlight the significance of non-CO2 emissions in policy-making, as well as the important potential of adjusting households' consumption structure.

Suggested Citation

  • Xie, Jun & Zhou, Shaojie & Teng, Fei & Gu, Alun, 2023. "The characteristics and driving factors of household CO2 and non-CO2 emissions in China," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 213(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:213:y:2023:i:c:s092180092300215x
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2023.107952
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S092180092300215X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2023.107952?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ang, B.W., 2015. "LMDI decomposition approach: A guide for implementation," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 233-238.
    2. Das, Aparna & Paul, Saikat Kumar, 2014. "CO2 emissions from household consumption in India between 1993–94 and 2006–07: A decomposition analysis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 90-105.
    3. Gill, Bernhard & Moeller, Simon, 2018. "GHG Emissions and the Rural-Urban Divide. A Carbon Footprint Analysis Based on the German Official Income and Expenditure Survey," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 160-169.
    4. Zhifu Mi & Jiali Zheng & Jing Meng & Jiamin Ou & Klaus Hubacek & Zhu Liu & D’Maris Coffman & Nicholas Stern & Sai Liang & Yi-Ming Wei, 2020. "Economic development and converging household carbon footprints in China," Nature Sustainability, Nature, vol. 3(7), pages 529-537, July.
    5. Duarte, Rosa & Miranda-Buetas, Sara & Sarasa, Cristina, 2021. "Household consumption patterns and income inequality in EU countries: Scenario analysis for a fair transition towards low-carbon economies," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    6. Golley, Jane & Meng, Xin, 2012. "Income inequality and carbon dioxide emissions: The case of Chinese urban households," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(6), pages 1864-1872.
    7. Yuan, Rong & Wang, Juan, 2021. "Impacts of poverty alleviation on household GHG footprints in China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    8. Zhang, Hongwu & Shi, Xunpeng & Wang, Keying & Xue, Jinjun & Song, Ligang & Sun, Yongping, 2020. "Intertemporal lifestyle changes and carbon emissions: Evidence from a China household survey," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    9. Zhao, Jun & Jiang, Qingzhe & Dong, Xiucheng & Dong, Kangyin & Jiang, Hongdian, 2022. "How does industrial structure adjustment reduce CO2 emissions? Spatial and mediation effects analysis for China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C).
    10. Ding, Qun & Cai, Wenjia & Wang, Can & Sanwal, Mukul, 2017. "The relationships between household consumption activities and energy consumption in china— An input-output analysis from the lifestyle perspective," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 207(C), pages 520-532.
    11. Zhang, Hongwu & Shi, Xunpeng & Cheong, Tsun Se & Wang, Keying, 2020. "Convergence of carbon emissions at the household level in China: A distribution dynamics approach," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    12. Gilbert E. Metcalf, 2008. "An Empirical Analysis of Energy Intensity and Its Determinants at the State Level," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 3), pages 1-26.
    13. López Gunn, Elena & Rica, Marta & Zorrilla-Miras, Pedro & Vay, Laura & Mayor, Beatriz & Pagano, Alessandro & Altamirano, Monica & Giordano, Rafaelle, 2021. "The natural assurance value of nature-based solutions: A layered institutional analysis of socio ecological systems for long term climate resilient transformation," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 186(C).
    14. Jiansheng Qu & Tek Maraseni & Lina Liu & Zhiqiang Zhang & Talal Yusaf, 2015. "A Comparison of Household Carbon Emission Patterns of Urban and Rural China over the 17 Year Period (1995–2011)," Energies, MDPI, vol. 8(9), pages 1-21, September.
    15. Yuan, Baolong & Ren, Shenggang & Chen, Xiaohong, 2015. "The effects of urbanization, consumption ratio and consumption structure on residential indirect CO2 emissions in China: A regional comparative analysis," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 94-106.
    16. Dabo Guan & Stephan Klasen & Klaus Hubacek & Kuishuang Feng & Zhu Liu & Kebin He & Yong Geng & Qiang Zhang, 2014. "Determinants of stagnating carbon intensity in China," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 4(11), pages 1017-1023, November.
    17. Eugene A. Rosa & Thomas Dietz, 2012. "Human drivers of national greenhouse-gas emissions," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 2(8), pages 581-586, August.
    18. Dominik Wiedenhofer & Dabo Guan & Zhu Liu & Jing Meng & Ning Zhang & Yi-Ming Wei, 2017. "Unequal household carbon footprints in China," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 7(1), pages 75-80, January.
    19. Daniel Moran & Richard Wood & Edgar Hertwich & Kim Mattson & Joao F. D. Rodriguez & Karin Schanes & John Barrett, 2020. "Quantifying the potential for consumer-oriented policy to reduce European and foreign carbon emissions," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(S1), pages 28-38, April.
    20. Fremstad, Anders & Underwood, Anthony & Zahran, Sammy, 2018. "The Environmental Impact of Sharing: Household and Urban Economies in CO2 Emissions," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 137-147.
    21. Meangbua, Onicha & Dhakal, Shobhakar & Kuwornu, John K.M., 2019. "Factors influencing energy requirements and CO2 emissions of households in Thailand: A panel data analysis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 521-531.
    22. Shigetomi, Yosuke & Matsumoto, Ken'ichi & Ogawa, Yuki & Shiraki, Hiroto & Yamamoto, Yuki & Ochi, Yuki & Ehara, Tomoki, 2018. "Driving forces underlying sub-national carbon dioxide emissions within the household sector and implications for the Paris Agreement targets in Japan," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 228(C), pages 2321-2332.
    23. Dou, Yue & Zhao, Jun & Dong, Xiucheng & Dong, Kangyin, 2021. "Quantifying the impacts of energy inequality on carbon emissions in China: A household-level analysis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    24. Jingmeng Wang & Wei Li & Philippe Ciais & Laurent Z. X. Li & Jinfeng Chang & Daniel Goll & Thomas Gasser & Xiaomeng Huang & Narayanappa Devaraju & Olivier Boucher, 2021. "Global cooling induced by biophysical effects of bioenergy crop cultivation," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 12(1), pages 1-9, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Shi, Xunpeng & Wang, Keying & Cheong, Tsun Se & Zhang, Hongwu, 2020. "Prioritizing driving factors of household carbon emissions: An application of the LASSO model with survey data," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    2. Chen, Zhenni & Zhang, Zengkai & Feng, Tong & Liu, Diyi, 2023. "What drives the temporal dynamics and spatial differences of urban and rural household emissions in China?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    3. Meng, Weilu & Yuan, Gecheng & Sun, Yongping, 2023. "Expansion of social networks and household carbon emissions: Evidence from household survey in China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 174(C).
    4. Fang Shen & Zibibula Simayi & Shengtian Yang & Yusuyunjiang Mamitimin & Xiaofen Zhang & Yunyi Zhang, 2023. "A Bibliometric Review of Household Carbon Footprint during 2000–2022," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(7), pages 1-25, April.
    5. Zhao, Mengxue & Yuan, Zhihang & Chan, Hon S., 2023. "Housing wealth and household carbon emissions: The role of homeownership in China," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 212(C).
    6. Lei, Mingyu & Ding, Qun & Cai, Wenjia & Wang, Can, 2022. "The exploration of joint carbon mitigation actions between demand- and supply-side for specific household consumption behaviors — A case study in China," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 324(C).
    7. Wang, Keying & Cui, Yongyan & Zhang, Hongwu & Shi, Xunpeng & Xue, Jinjun & Yuan, Zhao, 2022. "Household carbon footprints inequality in China: Drivers, components and dynamics," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).
    8. Rui Huang & Shaohui Zhang & Changxin Liu, 2018. "Comparing Urban and Rural Household CO 2 Emissions—Case from China’s Four Megacities: Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Chongqing," Energies, MDPI, vol. 11(5), pages 1-17, May.
    9. Pottier, Antonin, 2022. "Expenditure elasticity and income elasticity of GHG emissions: A survey of literature on household carbon footprint," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 192(C).
    10. Pottier, Antonin & Combet, Emmanuel & Cayla, Jean-Michel & de Lauretis, Simona & Nadaud, Franck, 2021. "Who emits CO2 ? Landscape of ecological inequalities in France from a critical perspective," FEEM Working Papers 311053, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    11. Zhao, Congyu & Jia, Rongwen & Dong, Kangyin, 2023. "Does financial inclusion achieve the dual dividends of narrowing carbon inequality within cities and between cities? Empirical evidence from China," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 195(C).
    12. Zhang, Yimeng & Wang, Feng & Zhang, Bing, 2023. "The impacts of household structure transitions on household carbon emissions in China," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 206(C).
    13. Zhang, Junjie & Yu, Biying & Wei, Yi-Ming, 2018. "Heterogeneous impacts of households on carbon dioxide emissions in Chinese provinces," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 229(C), pages 236-252.
    14. Zhang, Hongwu & Shi, Xunpeng & Cheong, Tsun Se & Wang, Keying, 2020. "Convergence of carbon emissions at the household level in China: A distribution dynamics approach," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    15. Yuling Sun & Junsong Jia & Min Ju & Chundi Chen, 2022. "Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Direct Carbon Emission and Policy Implication of Energy Transition for China’s Residential Consumption Sector by the Methods of Social Network Analysis and Geographically We," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(7), pages 1-26, July.
    16. Chen, Peipei & Wu, Yi & Zhong, Honglin & Long, Yin & Meng, Jing, 2022. "Exploring household emission patterns and driving factors in Japan using machine learning methods," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 307(C).
    17. Dong, Kangyin & Wang, Bo & Zhao, Jun & Taghizadeh-Hesary, Farhad, 2022. "Mitigating carbon emissions by accelerating green growth in China," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 226-243.
    18. Yulin Liu & Min Zhang & Rujia Liu, 2020. "The Impact of Income Inequality on Carbon Emissions in China: A Household-Level Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(7), pages 1-22, March.
    19. Smetschka, Barbara & Wiedenhofer, Dominik & Egger, Claudine & Haselsteiner, Edeltraud & Moran, Daniel & Gaube, Veronika, 2019. "Time Matters: The Carbon Footprint of Everyday Activities in Austria," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 1-1.
    20. Jiang, Yida & Long, Yin & Liu, Qiaoling & Dowaki, Kiyoshi & Ihara, Tomohiko, 2020. "Carbon emission quantification and decarbonization policy exploration for the household sector - Evidence from 51 Japanese cities," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:213:y:2023:i:c:s092180092300215x. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolecon .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.