IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolec/v220y2024ics0921800924000193.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Challenges in measuring the distribution of carbon footprints: The role of product and price heterogeneity

Author

Listed:
  • André, Mathias
  • Bourgeois, Alexandre
  • Combet, Emmanuel
  • Lequien, Matthieu
  • Pottier, Antonin

Abstract

The distribution of the footprint within a country is regularly computed using consumption data, and with the assumption that the footprint from a product category is proportional to the spending on that product. Here, we explore the limitations of this proportionality assumption.

Suggested Citation

  • André, Mathias & Bourgeois, Alexandre & Combet, Emmanuel & Lequien, Matthieu & Pottier, Antonin, 2024. "Challenges in measuring the distribution of carbon footprints: The role of product and price heterogeneity," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 220(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:220:y:2024:i:c:s0921800924000193
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2024.108122
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800924000193
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2024.108122?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 look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lucas Chancel, 2022. "Global carbon inequality over 1990–2019," Nature Sustainability, Nature, vol. 5(11), pages 931-938, November.
    2. Lucas Chancel, 2022. "Global carbon inequality over 1990–2019," PSE-Ecole d'économie de Paris (Postprint) halshs-04157767, HAL.
    3. Antonin Pottier & Emmanuel Combet & Jean-Michel Cayla & Simona de Lauretis & Franck Nadaud, 2020. "Qui émet du CO 2 ? Panorama critique des inégalités écologiques en France," Revue de l'OFCE, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 0(5), pages 73-132.
    4. Baltruszewicz, Marta & Steinberger, Julia K. & Paavola, Jouni & Ivanova, Diana & Brand-Correa, Lina I. & Owen, Anne, 2023. "Social outcomes of energy use in the United Kingdom: Household energy footprints and their links to well-being," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 205(C).
    5. 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).
    6. Jihoon Min & Narasimha D. Rao, 2018. "Estimating Uncertainty in Household Energy Footprints," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 22(6), pages 1307-1317, December.
    7. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/8mjf9ttru8kmqnq8f9r3io4ih is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Lévay, Petra Zsuzsa & Goedemé, Tim & Verbist, Gerlinde, 2023. "Income and expenditure elasticity of household carbon footprints. Some methodological considerations," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 212(C).
    9. Pothen, Frank & Tovar Reaños, Miguel Angel, 2018. "The Distribution of Material Footprints in Germany," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 237-251.
    10. Arnold Tukker & Hector Pollitt & Maurits Henkemans, 2020. "Consumption-based carbon accounting: sense and sensibility," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(S1), pages 1-13, April.
    11. Lucas Chancel, 2022. "Global carbon inequality over 1990–2019," Post-Print halshs-04157767, HAL.
    12. Isaksen, Elisabeth T. & Narbel, Patrick A., 2017. "A carbon footprint proportional to expenditure - A case for Norway?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 152-165.
    13. Ala-Mantila, Sanna & Heinonen, Jukka & Junnila, Seppo, 2014. "Relationship between urbanization, direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions, and expenditures: A multivariate analysis," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 129-139.
    14. Paul Malliet, 2020. "L'empreinte carbone des ménages français et les effets redistributifs d'une fiscalité carbone aux frontières," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03384969, HAL.
    15. Bastianoni, Simone & Pulselli, Federico Maria & Tiezzi, Enzo, 2004. "The problem of assigning responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(3), pages 253-257, July.
    16. 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.
    17. Edgar G. Hertwich, 2005. "Consumption and the Rebound Effect: An Industrial Ecology Perspective," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 9(1‐2), pages 85-98, January.
    18. Thomas Douenne, 2020. "The Vertical and Horizontal Distributive Effects of Energy Taxes: A Case Study of a French Policy," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 3), pages 231-254.
    19. Bastien Girod & Peter De Haan, 2010. "More or Better? A Model for Changes in Household Greenhouse Gas Emissions due to Higher Income," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 14(1), pages 31-49, January.
    20. Theine, Hendrik & Humer, Stefan & Moser, Mathias & Schnetzer, Matthias, 2022. "Emissions inequality: Disparities in income, expenditure, and the carbon footprint in Austria," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 197(C).
    21. Lee Liu, 2015. "A critical examination of the consumption‐based accounting approach: has the blaming of consumers gone too far?," Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 6(1), pages 1-8, January.
    22. André, Mathias & Bourgeois, Alexandre & Combet, Emmanuel & Lequien, Matthieu & Pottier, Antonin, 2024. "Challenges in measuring the distribution of carbon footprints: The role of product and price heterogeneity," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 220(C).
    23. Mach, Radomír & Weinzettel, Jan & Ščasný, Milan, 2018. "Environmental Impact of Consumption by Czech Households: Hybrid Input–Output Analysis Linked to Household Consumption Data," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 149(C), pages 62-73.
    24. Antonin Pottier & Gaëlle Le Treut, 2023. "Quantifying GHG emissions enabled by capital and labor: Economic and gender inequalities in France," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 27(2), pages 624-636, April.
    25. Munksgaard, Jesper & Pedersen, Klaus Alsted, 2001. "CO2 accounts for open economies: producer or consumer responsibility?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 327-334, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. André, Mathias & Bourgeois, Alexandre & Combet, Emmanuel & Lequien, Matthieu & Pottier, Antonin, 2024. "Challenges in measuring the distribution of carbon footprints: The role of product and price heterogeneity," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 220(C).

    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. 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).
    2. 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).
    3. Lévay, Petra Zsuzsa & Goedemé, Tim & Verbist, Gerlinde, 2023. "Income and expenditure elasticity of household carbon footprints. Some methodological considerations," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 212(C).
    4. Schuster, Antonia & Lindner, Michael & Otto, Ilona M., 2023. "Whose house is on fire? Identifying socio-demographic and housing characteristics driving differences in the UK household CO2 emissions," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 207(C).
    5. Gao, Xue & Chen, Xuan & Liu, Lan-Cui, 2024. "Exploring the determinants of the evolution of urban and rural household carbon footprints inequality in China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 185(C).
    6. Ollier, Maxime & De Cara, Stéphane, 2024. "Give and take: An analysis of the distributional consequences of emission tax-and-rebate schemes with an application to greenhouse gas emissions from European agriculture," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 219(C).
    7. Lévay, Petra Zsuzsa & Vanhille, Josefine & Goedemé, Tim & Verbist, Gerlinde, 2021. "The association between the carbon footprint and the socio-economic characteristics of Belgian households," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 186(C).
    8. Missbach, Leonard & Steckel, Jan Christoph, 2024. "Distributional impacts of climate policy and effective compensation: Evidence from 88 countries," EconStor Preprints 296491, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    9. Okushima, Shinichiro, 2024. "Measuring energy sufficiency: A state of being neither in energy poverty nor energy extravagance," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 354(PA).
    10. Fabra, Natalia & Reguant, Mar, 2024. "The energy transition: A balancing act," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    11. Tobias Angel & Alexandre Berthe & Valeria Costantini & Mariagrazia D’Angeli, 2024. "How the nature of inequality reduction matters for CO2 emissions," Working Papers 2024.14, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    12. Francisco & Veronica Lupi & Wouter Botzen & Richard S.J. Tol, 2024. "Urban and Non-Urban Contributions to the Social Cost of Carbon," Working Paper Series 0424, Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School.
    13. Ravigné, Emilien & Ghersi, Frédéric & Nadaud, Franck, 2022. "Is a fair energy transition possible? Evidence from the French low-carbon strategy," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    14. 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).
    15. Robert Istrate & Victor Tulus & Robert N. Grass & Laurent Vanbever & Wendelin J. Stark & Gonzalo Guillén-Gosálbez, 2024. "The environmental sustainability of digital content consumption," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-11, December.
    16. Lutz Sager, 2023. "Global air quality inequality over 2000-2020," Papers 2307.15669, arXiv.org.
    17. Córcoles, Carmen & López, Luis Antonio & Osorio, Pilar & Zafrilla, Jorge, 2024. "The carbon footprint of the empty Castilla-La Mancha," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    18. Anke Schaffartzik & Dominik Wiedenhofer & Nina Eisenmenger, 2015. "Raw Material Equivalents: The Challenges of Accounting for Sustainability in a Globalized World," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(5), pages 1-26, April.
    19. Ivanova, Diana & Wieland, Hanspeter, 2023. "Tracing carbon footprints to intermediate industries in the United Kingdom," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 214(C).
    20. Federica Cappelli, 2024. "Unequal contributions to CO2 emissions along the income distribution within and between countries," Working Papers 2024.06, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Carbon footprint; GHG emissions; Inequality; Household consumption; Expenditure surveys; Distribution;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • D30 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - General
    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • Q56 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environment and Development; Environment and Trade; Sustainability; Environmental Accounts and Accounting; Environmental Equity; Population Growth
    • Q57 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Ecological Economics
    • R20 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:220:y:2024:i:c:s0921800924000193. 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.