Impact Of Middle-class And Consumption Pattern On China’s Carbon Emissions

China is facing a dilemma of economic growth and carbon mitigation.In order to achieve the goal of peaking carbon emissions in 2030,the government has taken measures to cut down carbon intensity and change production structure.Consumption behavior has a considerable influence on energy use and associated emissions,with a high mitigation potential in some sectors,particularly when complementing technological and structural changes.Emissions can be substantially lowered through changes in consumption patterns.In this paper,input-output model and structural decomposition analysis are used to calculate household consumption induced carbon emissions among different income groups in 2010,2012 and 2016,and further analyze influencing factors that drive increment of emissions.The household consumption induced emissions results based on China Family Panel Survey(CFPS)showed that household consumption mainly result in the carbon emissions of production & supply of electric power,steam,hot water and wholesale & retail,catering service and smelting & pressing of metals.Urban and rural middleclass contributed about 50%,12% China’s total household emissions,respectively.Urban household indirect emissions grew in a decline rate,whereas rural showed the opposite trend.The difference of indirect emissions per capita between urban and rural was nearly three times and decreased year by year.Transportation,wholesale & retail,catering service revealed the most significant relative disparity,while agriculture appeared the smallest.Both urban and rural areas showed an unequal distribution of carbon emissions among income groups,for instance,high and income group was responsible for more than 40% emissions with only 20% regional population while 15% low-income contributed 9% CO2.The difference in the composition of carbon emissions between higher income and middle class lies in manufacturing such as smelting & pressing of metals,non-metal mineral products,chemicals and other services(the former is higher)and production & supply of electric power,steam,hot water,agriculture and food & tobacco(the latter is higher).The carbon emissions level per capita of rural high income group is comparable to that of urban middle income group.However,it varied across industries.Rural resident induced carbon emissions of production & supply of electric power,steam,hot water is higher,while urban resident’s carbon emissions of wholesale & retail,catering service and smelting & pressing of metals account for more.The decomposition result showed that during 2010-2012 and 2012-2016,the reduction of carbon intensity has greatly reduced carbon emissions.Consumption pattern,especially the middle-class and high income group’s consumption pattern played an important role in driving household carbon emissions.With the development of urbanization and improvement of living standard,urban population size,especially middle and high income groups,strongly drove carbon emissions.A continuous decline in rural population led to a gradual weakening and even negative effect on CO2.Structural change’s impact fluctuated in this period.In 2010-2012,the negative effect on emissions was obvious.But the effect weakened and even become positive in 2012-2016.Direct consumption was an indispensable factor for the increase of carbon emissions.In particular,urban low,lower and middle income groups’ consumption pattern effect offset that of higher-middle and high income groups with abatement of agriculture,food & tobacco and wholesale and retail,catering service’s emissions.This phenomenon also occurred in rural area.Both low and lower-middle income groups showed negative effect on the increase of agricultural carbon emissions.In the end,this paper provide some policy suggestions for both rural and urban areas.Firstly,middle and higher-middle income groups’ carbon-intensive consumption pattern of residential and household equipment need to be changed.Green procurement,sustainable consumption concept among middle-income group,durable product are feasible measures.Besides,encouraging low-income‘s lowcarbon consumption.In rural area,policymakers could raise farmers’ income,increase the supply of industrial product and give price preference to stimulate green consumption.Secondly,it is necessary to further cut down carbon emissions by means of energy mix transform and technology innovation,which should give priority to production & supply of electric power,steam,hot water,smelting & pressing of metals and agriculture.At last,updating production structure in the production of chemical industry and non-metal mineral products,putting forward restriction on the output of production & supply of electric power,steam,hot water and smelting & pressing of metals and increasing the price of intermediate input may benefit carbon mitigation in the production process.