Decomposition of residential electricity-related CO₂ emissions in China, a spatial-temporal study

The COVID-19 pandemic brings a surge in household electricity consumption, thereby enabling extensive research interest on residential carbon emissions as one of the hot topics in carbon reduction. However, research on spatial-temporal driving forces for the increase of residential CO₂ emissions between regions still remains unknown in terms of emissions mitigation in post-pandemic era. Therefore, we studied the residential CO₂ emissions from the electricity consumption of China during the period 1997-2019. Afterward, the regional specified production emission factors, combining with electricity use pattern, living standard and household size, were modelled to reveal the spatial-temporal driving forces at national and provincial scales. We observed that the national residential electricity-related CO₂ increased from 1997 to 2013, before fluctuating to a peak in 2019. Guangdong, Shandong and Jiangsu, from East China were the top emitters with 27% of the national scale. The decomposition results showed that the income improvement was the primary driving force behind the emission increase in most provinces, while the household size and production emission effects were the main negative effects. For the spatial decomposition, differences in the total households between regions further widen the gaps of total emissions. At the provincial scale of temporal decomposition, eastern developed regions exhibited the most significant decrease in production emissions. In contrast, electricity intensity effect showed negative emission influences in the east and central regions, and positive in north-eastern and western China. The research identified the different incremental patterns of residential electricity-related CO₂ emissions in various Chinese provinces, thereby providing scientific ways to save energy and reduce emissions.