A Study of the Impact of Carbon Pricing on Household Carbon Emissions from the Perspective of Sustainable Development

In the context of China’s “Dual Carbon” goals, the composite policy mechanism combining carbon trading and carbon taxation is widely considered a key pathway to achieve emission reductions. Although households are a major source of carbon emissions, their consumption behaviour has long remained outside the mainstream carbon reduction system, as existing policies focus primarily on enterprises and lack sufficient household-level participation and incentive mechanisms. Because China has not yet implemented an actual carbon tax, this study uses household high-carbon consumption dependency (HCD) as a proxy variable to capture the hypothetical administrative pressure that a carbon tax would impose on high-carbon consumption. Based on the concept of “Carbon Inclusion”, we construct an analytical framework for a composite mechanism that combines the carbon trading pilot policy (ETS) with this carbon-tax proxy. Using data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) and a two-way fixed-effects panel model, we empirically test the impact of this composite mechanism on household carbon emissions (total volume) and carbon intensity. The findings show that, while the composite mechanism does not lead to a statistically significant reduction in total household carbon emissions, it effectively lowers household carbon intensity by restraining high-carbon consumption and optimizing the consumption structure. This decoupling of intensity from total volume occurs because the mechanism reduces the share of high-carbon consumption (a compositional effect) but does not suppress total consumption growth (a scale effect). This result remains robust across multiple tests, confirming the policy effectiveness of the composite mechanism at the micro-individual level. By reducing carbon intensity without suppressing total consumption, this mechanism contributes directly to sustainable development, aligning with UN Sustainable Development Goals 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production) and 13 (Climate Action). The main contributions of this paper are threefold: (1) it moves beyond traditional single-policy or single-agent studies by linking a carbon-trading-and-proxy-carbon-tax composite mechanism with household carbon consumption; (2) it explores a Carbon Inclusion pathway that connects households, enterprises and the nation; and (3) it provides empirical support and a theoretical reference for improving household-level emission reduction policies and promoting public participation in achieving the “Dual Carbon” goals.