Energy Transition and Household Carbon Emissions in China

Abstract

This paper uses CFPS 2014, 2016, and 2018 micro-survey data to measure the level of household carbon emissions and utilizes Chinese city data to construct a composite index to measure the development level of energy transition and then empirically examines the impact of city energy transition on household carbon emissions through macro–micro data matching. It is found that the higher the index level of energy transition, the more obvious the inhibitory effect on household carbon emissions. Subsequently, the robustness test and the estimation results considering the endogeneity problem are not significantly different from the baseline regression findings. The mechanism analysis suggests that energy transition will have an indirect effect on household carbon emissions through green technology innovation, environmental regulation and the adjustment of consumer lifestyles. The heterogeneity study found that the impacts of energy transition on different household age structures, housing sizes, geographic locations and energy structures show significant differences. This paper has important policy implications for accelerating city energy transition, promoting energy structure transformation, and guiding household decarbonization.