Scale, distribution and variations of global greenhouse gas emissions driven by U.S. households

Song, Kigook; Qu, Shen; Taiebat, Morteza; Liang, Sai; Xu, Min

doi:10.1016/j.envint.2019.105137

Cited by 60 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…2 A ). In energy models, consumption side accounting has found similar links using energy expenditure data ( 19 ) and using income as an explanatory variable ( 18 ). The building-level data enabled the capture of housing attributes afforded by affluence—greater floor space, access to older, established neighborhoods—while keeping income endogenous to our model.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…How household energy emissions vary across income groups is not well understood but important given the rapidly changing demographics of US cities and suburbs ( 14 ). Research has traditionally focused on geographically limited cases ( 15 – 17 ) or lumped building energy emission with other end uses in carbon accounting ( 18 , 19 ). Finally, the influence of built form—the spatial relationships between buildings—and emissions have only been explored for a few US cities ( 20 , 21 ).…”

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confidence: 99%

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The carbon footprint of household energy use in the United States

Goldstein

Gounaridis

Newell

2020

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

251

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Residential energy use accounts for roughly 20% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the United States. Using data on 93 million individual households, we estimate these GHGs across the contiguous United States and clarify the respective influence of climate, affluence, energy infrastructure, urban form, and building attributes (age, housing type, heating fuel) in driving these emissions. A ranking by state reveals that GHGs (per unit floor space) are lowest in Western US states and highest in Central states. Wealthier Americans have per capita footprints ∼25% higher than those of lower-income residents, primarily due to larger homes. In especially affluent suburbs, these emissions can be 15 times higher than nearby neighborhoods. If the electrical grid is decarbonized, then the residential housing sector can meet the 28% emission reduction target for 2025 under the Paris Agreement. However, grid decarbonization will be insufficient to meet the 80% emissions reduction target for 2050 due to a growing housing stock and continued use of fossil fuels (natural gas, propane, and fuel oil) in homes. Meeting this target will also require deep energy retrofits and transitioning to distributed low-carbon energy sources, as well as reducing per capita floor space and zoning denser settlement patterns.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 96%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The carbon footprint of household energy use in the United States

Goldstein

Gounaridis

Newell

2020

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

251

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Some studies also investigated household carbon footprints in spatial detail, from metropolitan areas (Markolf et al, 2017), counties (Tamayao et al, 2014), cities (Ramaswami and Chavez, 2013;Wheeler et al, 2018), to the zipcode level (Jones and Kammen, 2014). Analyzing temporal change, Song et al (2019), using global MRIO, found that the average US household CF decreased from approximately 70 tCO 2 eq per household (tCO 2 eq/hh) in 2000 to below 50 tCO 2 eq/hh in 2014, with an increasing share of household CF from overseas. In terms of major contributors and potential mitigation, Jones and Kammen (2011) concluded that changes in diet and telecommuting were among the most effective approaches to reduce GHG emissions for households.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Household carbon inequality in the U.S.

Feng

Hubacek

Song

2021

Journal of Cleaner Production

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Household carbon emissions are mainly affected by income and other key demographic factors. Understanding the contribution of these factors can inform climate responsibilities and potential demandside climate mitigation strategies. By linking US consumer expenditure survey data with a nested national within a global multi-regional input-output model, this study estimates consumption-based GHG emissions for 9 income groups and assesses the carbon inequality in the US for 2015. Our results show that the per capita carbon footprint (CF) of the highest income group (>200 thousand USD per year) with 32.3 tons is about 2.6 times the per capita CF of the lowest income group (<15 thousand USD) with 12.3 tons. This is due to large gap in consumption volume and associated carbon emissions along the entire global production chain. Consumption pattern tends to narrow the gap in household per capita CF between income groups due to the lower carbon intensity per dollar spent by higher income groups. Another important factor influencing carbon footprints is household size and thus sharing of household equipment and other consumption items. The US average per capita CF is 18.1 tons compared to the global average of approximately 5 tons. The high carbon footprint across income groups in the US is largely due to the large contribution of emissions from heating and cooling and private transport, which reflects the settlement structure and lifestyles in the US, relying heavily on cars and living in larger houses.

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“…This assumption is grounded in the findings of numerous studies relating income, consumption, energy use and/or emissions, which draw upon a variety of methodologies (see for example Wiedenhofer et al 2013;Ummel 2014;Hubacek et al 2017;Wiedenhofer et al 2017;Dorband et al 2019;Song et al 2019;Li et al 2020;Oswald et al 2020;Ivanova and Wood 2020). Some studies are based on consumption surveys of a set of households that span a range of incomes, coupled with national input-output matrices and emissions coefficients, or sometimes coupled with estimates from lifecycle analysis.…”

Section: The Relationship Between Income and Emissionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Carbon Inequality Era: An assessment of the global distribution of consumption emissions among individuals from 1990 to 2015 and beyond

Kartha¹,

Kemp-Benedict²,

Ghosh³

et al. 2020

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In the 25 years from 1990 to 2015, annual global carbon emissions grew by 60%, approximately doubling total global cumulative emissions. This has brought the world perilously close to exceeding 2°C of warming, and it is now on the verge of exceeding 1.5°C. This paper examines the starkly different contributions of different income groups to carbon emissions in this period. It draws on new data that provides much improved insight into global and national income inequality, combined with national consumption emissions over this 25-year period, to provide an analysis relating emissions to income levels for the populations of 117 countries. Future scenarios of carbon inequality are also presented based on different possible trajectories of economic growth and carbon emissions, highlighting the challenge of ensuring a more equitable distribution of the remaining and rapidly diminishing global carbon budget.

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Scale, distribution and variations of global greenhouse gas emissions driven by U.S. households

Cited by 60 publications

References 33 publications

The carbon footprint of household energy use in the United States

The carbon footprint of household energy use in the United States

Household carbon inequality in the U.S.

The Carbon Inequality Era: An assessment of the global distribution of consumption emissions among individuals from 1990 to 2015 and beyond

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