Revealing environmental inequality based on three-dimensional extended input-output analysis: An integrated perspective of embodied water consumption, fossil energy use and carbon emissions

Environmental inequality exists not only between countries but also within nations with strong domestic consumption demand, such as China. This study aims to quantitatively trace the resource, energy, and climate inequalities stemming from domestic consumption at two spatial scales: the regional scale is a grouping of the provincial scale. A three-stage analysis framework is developed, incorporating the environmentally extended input-output model for water resources, fossil energy and carbon dioxide, the net transition matrix, the environmental Gini coefficient, and the pollution terms of trade index. Our findings reveal the presence of regional inequality embodied in water consumption, fossil energy use, and carbon emissions within China, with an overall expansion of 12 % in surveyable years. The environmental Gini coefficients for water, energy, and carbon increased by 15.8 %, 40.2 % and 59.0 %, respectively. China's eastern coastal region is the primary beneficiary of domestic consumption, ensuring economic growth while externalizing environmental pressures. The northwest region suffers the strongest inequality at the regional scale. With the same economic benefits, the water, energy and carbon costs in the northwest region are 11.6–15.5, 3.5–3.9 and 4.1–5.9 times that of the eastern coastal region. Disparities in production structure and consumption demand between regions constitute the fundamental causes of such inequalities. Improving the total factor productivity in key sectors and designing a compensation mechanism for the transfer of environmental pressures are effective measures to alleviate this inequality. Economic globalization propels environmental inequality, a well-established perspective within the CBA (consumption-based accounting) framework. This study introduces new quantitative approaches and extends the applicability of this perspective to the subnational scale.