Drivers of household carbon footprints across EU regions, from 2010 to 2015

Abstract

Abstract Urban regions are responsible for a significant proportion of carbon emissions. The carbon footprint (CF) is a practical measure to identify the responsibility of individuals, cities, or nations in climate change. Numerous CF studies have focused on national accounts, and a few combined consumer consumption and global supply chains to estimate additionally detailed spatial CF. However, the drivers of temporal change in detailed spatial CF are largely unknown, along with regional, spatial, and socioeconomic disparities. Here, we uncovered the drivers of changes in household CFs in EU regions, at the finest scale currently available, between 2010 and 2015. This study mapped the household CFs of 83 macro-regions across 27 EU nations and identified the driving factors underlying their temporal change. We combined multi-regional input-output tables and micro-consumption data from 275 247 and 272 045 households in 2010 and 2015, respectively. We decomposed EU regional CF, employing structural decomposition analysis, into five driving factors: emission intensity, supply chain structure, population, per capita consumption, and final demand share. For a deeper assessment of changes in the contribution of consumption patterns, we further categorized the regional CF into 15 factors, including 11 per capita consumption categories. We found that household CF drivers vary depending on region, population density, income, and consumption patterns. Our results can help policymakers adopt climate policies at the regional level by reflecting on the residents’ socioeconomic, spatial, and consumption conditions, for further ambitious climate actions.