IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/enepol/v192y2024ics0301421524002635.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Dissecting household carbon and energy inequality: A decade's insight into regional disparities and urban-rural dynamics in China

Author

Listed:
  • Zhong, Honglin
  • Zhang, Xinyu
  • Shao, Xuan
  • Xiao, Jingyi
  • Tian, Peipei

Abstract

Substantial inequalities exist in carbon and energy footprints across households in China, due to variations in income and consumption patterns. Examining these inequalities and their driving factors amid the rapid economic and energy transition is crucial for making informed climate policies. Here, we investigate the variations and driving factors of household carbon and energy inequality across urban and rural areas and ten income groups in China during 2007–2017 by employing the environmentally extended multiregional input–output approach and national household consumption survey data. The results reveal that urban regions tend to exhibit higher carbon and energy footprints, coupled with greater inequality, compared to rural regions. The carbon and energy inequalities in the less developed provinces are mainly attributed to urban-rural differences, whereas in the more developed provinces, intra-urban differences play a dominant role. The carbon and energy inequality declined in China during 2007–2017. We argue that the reduction in carbon and energy inequality in China can be attributed to footprints increases in rural regions, a trend that should be carefully considered in future low carbon development policy formulation.

Suggested Citation

  • Zhong, Honglin & Zhang, Xinyu & Shao, Xuan & Xiao, Jingyi & Tian, Peipei, 2024. "Dissecting household carbon and energy inequality: A decade's insight into regional disparities and urban-rural dynamics in China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 192(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:192:y:2024:i:c:s0301421524002635
    DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2024.114243
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421524002635
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.enpol.2024.114243?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. Dennis Tao Yang, 1999. "Urban-Biased Policies and Rising Income Inequality in China," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(2), pages 306-310, May.
    2. Sara Maestre-Andrés & Stefan Drews & Jeroen van den Bergh, 2020. "Perceived fairness and public acceptability of carbon pricing: a review of the literature," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(9), pages 1186-1204, July.
    3. Lucas Chancel, 2022. "Global carbon inequality over 1990–2019," PSE-Ecole d'économie de Paris (Postprint) halshs-04157767, HAL.
    4. Klaus Hubacek & Giovanni Baiocchi & Kuishuang Feng & Anand Patwardhan, 2017. "Poverty eradication in a carbon constrained world," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 8(1), pages 1-9, December.
    5. Dongni Han & Deyong Yu & Jiangxiao Qiu, 2023. "Assessing coupling interactions in a safe and just operating space for regional sustainability," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-15, December.
    6. 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.
    7. Lidia Ceriani & Paolo Verme, 2012. "The origins of the Gini index: extracts from Variabilità e Mutabilità (1912) by Corrado Gini," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 10(3), pages 421-443, September.
    8. Dorband, Ira Irina & Jakob, Michael & Kalkuhl, Matthias & Steckel, Jan Christoph, 2019. "Poverty and distributional effects of carbon pricing in low- and middle-income countries – A global comparative analysis," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 246-257.
    9. Chen, Feifei & Qiu, Huanguang & Zhang, Jun, 2022. "Energy consumption and income of the poor in rural China: Inference for poverty measures," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    10. Yannick Oswald & Anne Owen & Julia K. Steinberger, 2020. "Publisher Correction: Large inequality in international and intranational energy footprints between income groups and across consumption categories," Nature Energy, Nature, vol. 5(4), pages 349-349, April.
    11. Zhao, Xiaoli & Li, Na & Ma, Chunbo, 2012. "Residential energy consumption in urban China: A decomposition analysis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 644-653.
    12. Huang, Zhehao & Dong, Hao & Jia, Shuaishuai, 2022. "Equilibrium pricing for carbon emission in response to the target of carbon emission peaking," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    13. Balsalobre-Lorente, Daniel & Ibáñez-Luzón, Lucia & Usman, Muhammad & Shahbaz, Muhammad, 2022. "The environmental Kuznets curve, based on the economic complexity, and the pollution haven hypothesis in PIIGS countries," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 185(C), pages 1441-1455.
    14. Shimei Wu & Xinye Zheng & Chu Wei, 2017. "Measurement of inequality using household energy consumption data in rural China," Nature Energy, Nature, vol. 2(10), pages 795-803, October.
    15. Li, Ke & Lin, Boqiang, 2015. "Impacts of urbanization and industrialization on energy consumption/CO2 emissions: Does the level of development matter?," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 1107-1122.
    16. Lucas Chancel, 2022. "Global carbon inequality over 1990–2019," Nature Sustainability, Nature, vol. 5(11), pages 931-938, November.
    17. Hongbin Cai & Yuyu Chen & Li-An Zhou, 2010. "Income and Consumption Inequality in Urban China: 1992-2003," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 58(3), pages 385-413, April.
    18. Xu, Chong & Wang, Bingjie & Chen, Jiandong & Shen, Zhiyang & Song, Malin & An, Jiafu, 2022. "Carbon inequality in China: Novel drivers and policy driven scenario analysis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 170(C).
    19. Tehreem Fatima & Umer Shahzad & Lianbiao Cui, 2021. "Renewable and nonrenewable energy consumption, trade and CO2 emissions in high emitter countries: does the income level matter?," Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 64(7), pages 1227-1251, June.
    20. Yannick Oswald & Anne Owen & Julia K. Steinberger, 2020. "Large inequality in international and intranational energy footprints between income groups and across consumption categories," Nature Energy, Nature, vol. 5(3), pages 231-239, March.
    21. Lucas Chancel, 2022. "Global carbon inequality over 1990–2019," Post-Print halshs-04157767, HAL.
    22. 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.
    23. Li, Jun & Zhang, Dayong & Su, Bin, 2019. "The Impact of Social Awareness and Lifestyles on Household Carbon Emissions in China," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 145-155.
    24. Zhang, Xiaoling & Wang, Yue, 2017. "How to reduce household carbon emissions: A review of experience and policy design considerations," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 116-124.
    25. Benedikt Bruckner & Klaus Hubacek & Yuli Shan & Honglin Zhong & Kuishuang Feng, 2022. "Impacts of poverty alleviation on national and global carbon emissions," Nature Sustainability, Nature, vol. 5(4), pages 311-320, April.
    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. Malerba, Daniele & Roscioli, Federico & Gaentzsch, Anja & Ward, Hauke, 2024. "Changing carbon footprints and the consequent impacts of carbon taxes and cash transfers on poverty and inequality across years: A Peruvian case study," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 192(C).
    2. 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).
    3. Liang, Longwu & Chen, Mingxing & Zhang, Xiaoping & Sun, Mingxing, 2024. "Understanding changes in household carbon footprint during rapid urbanization in China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 185(C).
    4. 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.
    5. Federica Cappelli, 2024. "Unequal contributions to CO2 emissions along the income distribution within and between countries," Working Papers 2024.06, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    6. 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).
    7. 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).
    8. 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).
    9. Cappelli, Federica, 2024. "Unequal contributions to CO2 emissions along the income distribution within and between countries," FEEM Working Papers 341641, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    10. Sun, Shuyu & Tong, Kangkang, 2024. "Rural-urban inequality in energy use sufficiency and efficiency during a rapid urbanization period," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 364(C).
    11. 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).
    12. Okushima, Shinichiro, 2024. "Measuring energy sufficiency: A state of being neither in energy poverty nor energy extravagance," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 354(PA).
    13. 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).
    14. Xiao, Yilong & Ma, Teng & Fang, Yan Ru & Huang, Chen & Dai, Hancheng, 2024. "Disparity and driving forces of energy consumption in China's provincial urban residential sector under the carbon neutrality target," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 301(C).
    15. Malanima, Paolo, 2024. "International inequality in energy use and CO2 emissions (1820–2020)," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 233-244.
    16. Zhang, Mingming & Liu, Jinghui & Liu, Liyun & Zhou, Dequn, 2023. "Inequality in urban household energy consumption for 30 Chinese provinces," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).
    17. Yuru Guan & Jin Yan & Yuli Shan & Yannan Zhou & Ye Hang & Ruoqi Li & Yu Liu & Binyuan Liu & Qingyun Nie & Benedikt Bruckner & Kuishuang Feng & Klaus Hubacek, 2023. "Burden of the global energy price crisis on households," Nature Energy, Nature, vol. 8(3), pages 304-316, March.
    18. 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).
    19. Lena Kilian & Anne Owen & Andy Newing & Diana Ivanova, 2022. "Exploring Transport Consumption-Based Emissions: Spatial Patterns, Social Factors, Well-Being, and Policy Implications," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(19), pages 1-26, September.
    20. Ying Pan & Ke Shi & Zhongxu Zhao & Yao Li & Junxi Wu, 2024. "The effects of China’s poverty eradication program on sustainability and inequality," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-15, December.

    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:enepol:v:192:y:2024:i:c:s0301421524002635. 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/enpol .

    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.