Sustainability, Vol. 11, Pages 7157: Why Are the Carbon Footprints of China`s Urban Households Rising? An Input-Output Analysis and Structural Decomposition Analysis (Sustainability)

A rise in China’s economy and urbanization has brought about obvious growth in the carbon footprints of urban households over the past years. In this study, input–output analysis was adopted to calculate the carbon footprints of urban households in China. Furthermore, a detailed analysis of the impact factors on indirect carbon footprints was carried out by using the structural decomposition analysis at both holistic and sectoral levels. The results showed that the carbon footprints of urban households were 941.37 MtCO2 in 2002, 1498.11 MtCO2 in 2007, and 2139.50 MtCO2 in 2012. Electricity was the main contributor to the direct urban household carbon footprints, accounting for over 40%. The category of “household facilities” contributed the most to indirect carbon footprints (306.00 MtCO2) in 2012, and the “transportation” had the fastest growth rate (395%) during 2002–2012. The industrial sector of “wearing apparel” had the largest increments (139.92 MtCO2) in carbon footprints during the past decade. Generally, consumption level and population size presented positive effects on the increments in indirect carbon footprints, while emission intensity decreased indirect carbon footprints. However, the impact of consumption structure and intermediate demand on indirect carbon footprints varied at holistic and sectoral levels. The mitigation efforts should focus on reducing emission intensity, shifting consumption structure and changing intermediate demand.