Understanding the determinants of households’ greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions is thus key to designing successful decarbonization policies. We examine the role of household, house, and place in explaining household GHG emissions from transport and energy in the UK. Our starting point is similar to the analysis in Lyubich (2023) for the US, albeit in a lower emission and higher density context. Using detailed household panel data on housing characteristics from UKHLS enables us to speak to the determinants of both household and place effects and investigate the effects of different policy scenarios (e.g., revenue recycling from carbon taxes).

We estimate household carbon emissions from two main sources: energy consumption and transport. For energy-related emissions, we combine data from the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy on energy prices and emissions factors, including average regional grid intensity, with household-level information on electricity, gas, and oil expenditures. For transport, we use data on commuting time, distance from work, and modes of transport to calculate average CO2 emissions from commuting. Additionally, we estimate emissions from car usage through annual miles driven and the type of fuel used.

We analyze the determinants of carbon emissions, focusing on observed and unobserved, but time-invariant, household, house, and place characteristics. We exploit the panel dimension of our data using a “mover design” approach to disentangle contextual factors, such as place-based drivers of emissions and house characteristics, from household-level determinants.

We estimate that households emit on average 7 tCO2 per capita annually (4.6t from energy and 2.4t from transport), consistent with external data sources. Between 2009 and 2021, average carbon emissions decreased by 30%, driven primarily by reductions in energy-related emissions. We find substantial regional heterogeneity, and average emissions in rural villages are 70-80% higher than in urban conurbations. Detached houses have higher emissions than flats.

Co-authors

Associate Professor Lucie Gadenne, Queen Mary University of London;

Associate Professor Ludovica Gazze, University of Warwick;

Davide Sansone, SciencesPo