Driving Forces of Direct Carbon Emission From Urban and Rural Household Energy Consumption in China

Abstract

In China, economic growth stimulates urban expansion and rural household income and consumption expenditure. The study calculates direct carbon emission from the energy consumption of Chinese urban and rural household and applies LMDI (Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index) decomposition model to identify the driving forces that influence variations in residential direct carbon emission. The result shows that direct carbon emission of urban residents is always higher than that of rural and there is still a significant gap between them. Income lever effect and energy structure effect present positive impact on both urban and rural residential emission, while the emission intensity effect plays a negative role. In addition, population size plays positive effect on urban residential direct carbon emission, while negative role on rural. The study concludes with the policy implications