Is There an Environmental Kuznets Curve for Food-Related Carbon Emissions? Evidence from China

Rising incomes worldwide are reshaping dietary patterns and intensifying concern about the carbon impacts of household food consumption. This study examines how economic development influences food-related carbon emissions in China, with a focus on household food consumption behavior and dietary change.

Using longitudinal household data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey covering 2004-2011, we apply a panel threshold regression model to identify nonlinear income effects on food-related carbon emissions.

Within the 2004-2011 sample, household income is positively associated with food-related emissions, but the marginal effect declines once income exceeds the estimated threshold. The baseline model identifies a single threshold at 6.5479 (95% confidence interval: [6.4965, 6.5917]), corresponding to 65,479 yuan in annual household income. The single-threshold test is significant at the 5% level (p = 0.035), and the adjusted R² is 0.243. Income growth significantly increases the consumption of greenhouse-gas-intensive foods and associated emissions among low-income households, whereas food consumption patterns among high-income households are comparatively more stable within the sample period.

These findings indicate that rising income can intensify food-related carbon pressure during China's dietary transition, particularly through dietary upgrading among low-income households, but they do not provide direct evidence that household food emissions will stabilize automatically over time.