Abstract
As China’s economy enters the “new normal” phase, its growth model has gradually changed to focus more on domestic consumption. In this paper, we examine regional disparities in households’ total (direct and indirect) energy use in China from 2002 to 2012. Using a structural decomposition approach, we examine how changes in China’s technology, economic structure, urbanization, lifestyle, and interregional trade affect household energy use across different regions. We find that rising income levels contributed most to energy usage. Improved energy efficiency offset the rising effects of heightened household consumption in most regions. Rural-to-urban migration played an important role in enhancing energy use in all regions from 2002 to 2012. Moreover, households started to rely more heavily on interregional trade of final goods and services to meet their consumption demands. Based on this multi-regional and multi-angle study, we provide some regional-specific policies that would help curb household energy demand and promote sustainable consumption in China.
Highlights
China’s economy has been buoyed by household spending
We investigate the effects of lifestyle changes and interregional trade on household indirect energy use of each region
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Summary
China’s economy has been buoyed by household spending. Rising incomes bolstered by urbanization have enabled this recent phenomenon. Our paper provides a more comprehensive study of contributors to China’s household energy uses from a multiregional perspective by exploring how technology improvements, economic structure change, urbanization, lifestyle changes and interregional trade influence household energy uses across different regions from 2002 to 2012. In this vein, the findings of our research will help policymakers in China to form regional-specific policies that curb China’s rapidly rising household energy demand from multi-angle perspectives. Methodn othloisgmyualntirdegDioantaal and multi-angle analysis, we offer some valuable regional-specific policy suggestions for China in guiding its residents’ lifestyles toward greener consumption
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