Urban-rural carbon footprint disparity across China from essential household expenditure: Survey-based analysis, 2010–2014

Abstract

Household activities have become an increasingly important driver of carbon emission in China during economic transition. In quest of a more coordinated and efficient mitigation strategy, it is crucial to track the dynamics of carbon footprint discrepancy between urban and rural households across various regions. In this study, combing household-level expenditure survey with multi-regional input-output model, we quantify the urban-rural carbon footprint disparity originated from six essential expenditure categories, they are food, clothing, housing, utility, transport, and post and telecommunication. We assess the roles these essential consumptions play in contributing to carbon footprint disparity across different provincial regions in China during 2010–2014. The results show that the overall per capita household carbon footprint in China increased by 202% during this period, but the annual growth rate actually decreased from 27.5% to 11.4%. Despite urban-rural disparity expanded by 155% over 2010–2014, the annual changing rate slowed down (from 14.9% to 8.2%). Although the per capita carbon footprints in some less-developed regions such as northwest, northeast and central provinces are relatively small, they tend to have a bigger difference between urban and rural households than other more-developed provinces. The expenditure on utility and food plays a major part in urban-rural carbon footprint disparity for most regions, and their share has been increasing over time. Though historically, income inequality tends to be lower with increase in household income and footprint, this lifting effect becomes more uncertain when regions are moving towards a more developed stage.