Assessing energy poverty and its effect on CO2 emissions: The case of China

With scholars paying increasing attention to the environmental effects of energy poverty, further discussion on the energy poverty-CO2 nexus is particularly useful for achieving carbon reduction targets from the perspective of energy poverty. Accordingly, this paper investigates the dynamic impact of energy poverty on CO2 emissions in China. By proposing a new and comprehensive evaluation index, we assess the energy poverty levels in 30 Chinese provinces for the period 2002–2017. Then, we re-estimate the impact of energy poverty on CO2 emissions using the system-generalized method of moments (SYS-GMM) method. We find that although significant differences exist in energy poverty across various regions in China, the country's total level of energy poverty displays a downward trend over the period 2002–2017. Furthermore, energy poverty can accelerate the growth of CO2 emissions in China. In regions with high-level energy poverty, a bidirectional causal link exists between energy poverty and CO2 emissions, while a unidirectional causality runs from energy poverty to CO2 emissions in regions with low-level energy poverty. The findings of this paper, therefore, add to the existing literature and provide important policy implications for curbing CO2 emissions.