The inequality of household carbon footprint in China: A city-level analysis

Abstract

Climate change mitigation and carbon inequality reduction are of great significance to the sustainable development. Most of the existing studies on China's household carbon footprint inequality are at provincial level and lack in-depth analysis of cross-dimension of consumption categories. We calculated the carbon footprints in 309 city-level areas in China based on the multi-regional input-output table, and further explored the inequality of household carbon footprints from perspective of cross-dimension with Gini coefficient and Lorentz curve based on the China Family Panel Studies dataset. We found that although the carbon footprint inequality of different areas, income groups and family size were relatively high on the whole, the level of that in different consumption categories showed significant different characters. For instance, affluent demographics possess the requisite financial capacity to acquire luxury apparel, whereas economically disadvantaged cohorts predominantly procure garments at standard price points. This dynamic may engender heightened carbon disparity within the realm of clothing, with a proclivity for greater imbalances observed in high-income strata as opposed to their low-income counterparts. Specific measures for guiding residents to rationally consume luxury food and allocate educational resources, and advocate low-carbon travel to eliminate household carbon footprint inequality in China are proposed.