Does targeted poverty alleviation improve households’ adaptation to hot weathers: Evidence from electricity consumption of poor households

Abstract

Although the literature on Targeted Poverty Alleviation (TPA) to economic benefits of poor populations, little is known about its contributor to the climate adaptation ability. This paper examines the effects of TPA on adaptation behaviours of poor households' response to extreme heat, using random month-to-month variation in temperature based on household-level panel data from China. The results show that after the implementation of TPA, one additional day with temperatures above 90° in a month would increase the electricity consumption of households by 0.5%. While considerable heterogeneity is observed across education and health: the low-education and critical illness groups do not experience a electricity consumption increase during hot days, reflecting the potential energy inequality on those specific socio-economic residents in responding to climate change. This paper also identifies that the effects of different measures of TPA on households' adaptation behaviour to hot weather. It finds that crop farming project and breeding project have positive impact on enhancing households’ high-temperature adaptation compared to tourism and manufacturing projects.