Determinants of Proactive Low-Carbon Consumption Behaviors: Insights from Urban Residents in Eastern China

An analysis and prediction of carbon emissions in the sphere of consumer lifestyles in Beijing

In alignment with China's "dual carbon" goals and its quest to build an ecological civilization, this study scrutinizes the carbon emissions derived from consumer lifestyles, with a particular focus on Beijing, a high-consumption urban metropolis. Utilizing the expanded STIRPAT model and ridge regression, factors such as permanent population, per capita consumption expenditure, energy intensity, energy structure, and consumption structure are examined to evaluate their impact on lifestyle-associated carbon emissions. A scenario analysis is also conducted to project future carbon emissions in Beijing. From 2010 to 2020, there was an overall upward trend in lifestyle-associated carbon emissions, up to a maximum of 87.8260 million tons. Indirect consumption-related carbon emissions, particularly those associated with residential and transportation-related consumption, constituted the primary sources. The most influential factors on carbon emissions were found to be the consumption structure. Notably, adopting a low-carbon consumption mindset and an optimized consumption structure could foster significant carbon reduction. Projections suggest that by 2035, carbon emissions due to residents' consumption could decline by 39.72% under a low-carbon consumption scenario and by 48.74% under a coordinated development scenario. Future efforts should prioritize promoting green, low-carbon living, refining consumption structure and practices, curbing excessive housing consumption, improving energy structure, and raising technological and energy efficiency standards.

The Behavior-Driven Mechanism of Consumer Participation in "Carbon Neutrality": Based on the Promotion of Replacing Coal with Biomass Briquette Fuel

"replacing coal with biomass briquette fuel" can effectively reduce carbon emissions. This study takes this as an example to discuss consumers' "willingness to consume (WTC)", "willingness to spend (WTS)" and related influencing factors to find the behavior-driven mechanism of consumer participation in "carbon neutrality". Through the survey and analysis, the results show that 81.64% of the respondents support to consume Biomass Briquette Fuel (BBF) to replace coal. The annual WTS is 157.78 CNY per capita. The factors, such as the education, the relevant government policy support cognition, the level of cognition of health concepts, ecological environmental protection and resource regeneration, have a significant positive impact on the promotion in rural areas. Finally, we put forward corresponding policy recommendations. It provides a reference for motivating consumers to participate in "carbon neutrality" and promoting rural energy transformation to achieve the goal of "carbon neutrality".

Influence Mechanism of Different Environmental Regulations on Carbon Emission Efficiency

The rational use of environmental regulation tools has become an important means by which to improve the efficiency of carbon emissions. Different types of environmental regulations and their combinations have different impacts on carbon emission efficiency. In order to determine the environmental regulation configurations that may achieve high carbon emission efficiency or lead to low carbon emission efficiency, we constructed an analytical framework of connections between environmental regulation configurations and carbon emission efficiency. Moreover, 30 Chinese provinces from the period covering 2016 to 2019 were selected as research cases. In addition, the super slacks-based measure of efficiency (SE-SBM) model was applied to evaluate carbon emission efficiency. Finally, the fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) method was employed to analyze the impact of different environmental regulation configurations on carbon emission efficiency. The results showed that the carbon emission efficiency of various regions of China is generally low (with most regions not having reached an effective level) and that there are large regional differences. We found that there are four environmental regulation configurations that can achieve high carbon emission efficiency and two environmental regulation configurations that lead to low carbon emission efficiency. Based on these configurations, we draw three conclusions: (1) There are three paths to achieving high carbon emission efficiency: one that values command-and-control environmental regulation but disfavors market-incentive environmental regulation, another that combines command-and-control environmental regulation with market-incentive environmental regulation, and a third that couples command-and-control environmental regulation with voluntary environmental regulation. (2) Two paths that may lead to low carbon emission efficiency were established: excessive penalties and the lack of specific measures. (3) In some conditions, environmental governance investment and fiscal expenditure could be substituted for each other; environmental protection administrative penalties and pollution charges are synchronized; environmental governance investment in the promotion of carbon emission efficiency is indispensable. Policies and suggestions on how the government can use environmental regulation tools to improve carbon emission efficiency are proposed from a general coordinative perspective in the final section of this paper.