Research On The Spectrum Of CO₂Emissions Caused By Household Consumption Based On Consumption Level

Preventing global warming and controlling CO2emissions have become the common challenge for the world. With the continuous improvement of people’s living standards, carbon emissions caused by household consumption are increasing rapidly. The experience of the developed countries indicated that with the improvement of living standards, the proportion of household energy consumption will rise and eventually exceed industrial energy use. As the basic unit of social terminal consumption, household carbon emissions should not be overlooked, the level of which will determine low-carbon development process in China. In this background, the dissertation takes household consumption as research object to discuss carbon emissions and carbon abatement.Around the theme of household carbon emissions in different consumption level, the dissertation proposes four core research questions:First, considering the characteristics of the typical urban-rural dualistic structure, what difference existed between urban and rural household carbon emissions? What are the reasons for the difference? Second, considering the large difference of consumption level between China’s provinces, what regional difference existed about household carbon emissions? What is the relationship between household carbon emissions and economic development in different regions? Third, how different are household carbon emissions in different income groups? What factors affect the difference of household carbon emissions between income groups? Fourth, what are the evolution characteristics of household carbon structure from the view of household terminal energy consumption? The above core research questions constitute the main contents of the dissertation.The dissertation consists of three parts, including8chapters in total. The first part, including chapter one and chapter two, is theoretical reviews, which aims at constructing the analytic framework by reviewing the household carbon emissions relative theories. The second part, including contents from chapter three to chapter seven, is mainly positive analysis. Chapter three, chapter four and chapter five respectively analysis the spectrum of household carbon emissions in different consumption level based on urban-rural differences, inter-provincial differences and income groups differences. Chapter six and chapter seven respectively study the strategies of household carbon abatement from different perspectives. The third part is chapter eight, which includes main conclusions of the present study and future expects of relevant study.The main conclusions of the dissertation are as follows:(1) The disparity of lifestyle between urban residents and rural residents leads to differences of urban-rural household carbon emissions, which urban household carbon emissions based on indirect carbon emissions, while rural household mainly direct carbon emissions. Population size, per capita energy consumption level and differences of urban-rural energy consumption structure have been pushing the expansion of disparity between urban and rural residents in direct carbon emissions. Per capita consumption level has a positive effect on expanding the disparity of urban-rural household indirect carbon emissions, while population size and differences of urban-rural consumption structure has an negative effect. Urbanization helps to reduce household direct carbon emissions and is not conducive to the reduction of household indirect carbon emissions. In the process of raising the urbanization level, we should reduce consumer carbon emissions intensity of goods (or services) by technological advances in order to low a significant increase in household carbon emissions resulting from consumption growth.(2) Regional differentiation of China’s household carbon emissions is very obvious. Per capita direct carbon emissions show the "Higher in Northern and Southeastern China" and "Lower in Central and Southwestern China" spatial pattern. Per capita indirect carbon emissions show the "Higher in the East, followed by Central and Northeast regions, lower in the West" spatial pattern. Affected by the factors of climate conditions and energy supply structure, regional differentiation of China’s carbon emissions of household energy use in coal, gas, oil, hot and electricity is very obvious. The level of provincial household carbon emissions is significantly related to the level of provincial economic development. Household Electricity, housing and food consumption are the main source of household carbon emissions in each province of China. Household indirect carbon emissions in developed provinces are mainly concentrated in developmental consumption induced carbon emissions, such as carbon emissions of housing, transportation and communications consumption. Household indirect carbon emissions in underdeveloped provinces are mainly concentrated in subsistence consumption induced carbon emissions, such as carbon emissions of food and clothing consumption. (3) The income level is main cause of the disparity of household carbon emissions in different groups. The rising of income level, on the one hand, brings about the change of people’s travel way. When the income level reaches a certain stage, people will prefer to travel by private car, so that substantial growth in carbon emissions induced by private car travel is the reason for high-income household direct carbon emissions much higher than low-income household. On the other hand, the rising of income level brings about the change of people’s consumption structure. With the rising of income level, people’s consumption pattern has gradually changed from meeting basic needs to the needs of improving living conditions and life quality. The growth in carbon emissions induced by transportation and communications, housing, culture-education and entertainment consumption is the reason for high-income household indirect carbon emissions much higher than low-income household.(4) With the development of economy and constantly rising of the people’s living standards, the main part of Shanghai’s urban household energy consumption have switched from the residential energy consumption of cooking to transportation energy consumption of private cars travel. Despite the current household energy consumption of urban residents in Shanghai is far lower than developed countries’household energy consumption, we should formulate relevant policies to avoid the high energy consumption "locked-in" because of urban residents imitating the Western lifestyle. It has also been shown that with the rising of the people’s living standards, Shanghai’s urban household carbon emissions have shown a trend of stable increase. The carbon emissions induced by household electricity consumption have been the greatest part of household carbon emissions, which account for more than half of total household carbon emissions. From the evolution of household terminal carbon structure, carbon emissions induced by private car travel has grow fastest, while carbon emissions induced by electricity consumption of household appliance was the greatest part of household carbon emissions.(5) In the process of advancing urbanization, the spectrum of household direct carbon emissions show the "carbon emissions of traditional energy decreased rapidly" and "carbon emissions induced by private car travel grow fast" change characteristic, while the spectrum of household indirect carbon emissions show the "the proportion of subsistence consumption induced carbon emissions, such as carbon emissions of food and clothing consumption dropped" and "the proportion of developmental consumption induced carbon emissions, such as carbon emissions of transportation and communications, culture-education and entertainment consumption increased" change characteristic. The Nation should formulate relevant policies to guide the residents’reasonable consumption, avoid the tendency of excessive consumption and luxury consumption. Learning from ladder-type water prices and ladder-type electricity prices, we can introduce the ladder-type carbon tax of household energy consumption in the proper time, in order to guarantee household basic subsistence carbon consumption, reflect household developmental carbon consumption of improving and enhancing the quality of life, control household luxury carbon consumption.The major contribution of this study is that:(1) Based on the perspective of household consumption, the dissertation introduces "spectrum" of sociological concept to the study of household carbon emissions. Considering the characteristics of the typical urban-rural dualistic structure and significant regional disparity, the dissertation respectively analysis the spectrum of household carbon emissions in different consumption level based on urban-rural differences, inter-provincial differences and income groups differences. This paper made up of the shortcoming of attention on energy consumption and carbon emissions from household consumption, and enriched theoretical and empirical research on carbon emissions from household consumption.(2) Constructing the approach of household carbon emissions based on the perspective of household terminal energy use. By establishing the analysis framework of HTCM, we can combine household energy use behavior with household carbon emissions. It helps to better understand which of household energy use behavior-winter heating, cooking, household appliance and private car travel, contributes most to household carbon emissions. It also helps to make a clear direction of household carbon abatement to reduce household carbon much more targeted and provide references for building residents’low-carbon lifestyle.