How consumption carbon emission intensity varies across Spanish households

Abstract

The prominence of emissions mitigating policies call for an understanding of their potential distributional impact. To assess this heterogeneity, we quantify and analyse the consumption emission intensity, defined as carbon emissions per unit of consumption, across households in Spain. With the exception of the poorest households, emission intensity decreases with income and peaks for households whose head is middle-aged (40 years old). Moreover, households whose main earner is less educated and male, and who live in smaller cities and rent their main residence, also emit more per unit of expenditure and thus, may be disproportionably impacted by emissions mitigating policies.