Estimating and evaluating spatial and longitudinal consumption-based emissions of UK households

Urgent and radical actions are needed to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. To assess what this action may look like from a demand-side perspective, consumption-based greenhouse gas emissions are needed. Moreover, as local policy makers are increasingly involved in climate change mitigation efforts, it is necessary to understand policy impacts, as well as spatial emission patterns. With a focus on UK households, this thesis contributes to this need in three ways. Firstly, it provides a method of estimating neighbourhood level emissions as robustly as possible and using open data. Furthermore, this work provides a discussion on how uncertainty from microdata can be reduced in other international contexts to estimate neighbourhood level emissions. Moreover, such a method can provide a more replicable way of estimating emissions for both researchers and policy makers.
Secondly, it provides a spatial analysis of transport emissions, one of the highest emission categories with much reduction potential at a local policy level. As transport infrastructure varies strongly throughout the UK, this research focuses on London. This analysis bridges the gap between consumption-based emissions research and geographical analysis, providing novel insight into spatial patterns of the links between emissions and social factors. Furthermore, this work highlights the need to incorporate spatial statistics in spatialised emission analyses, due to the spatial heterogeneity of these patterns. In addition, this work enables an assessment of where different policies may be most effective in reducing emissions and increasing social equity, making it a timely contribution to the consumption-based emissions literature.
Thirdly, this research looks at consumption-based greenhouse gas emissions of UK households longitudinally. Particular attention is paid to changes in emissions, which occurred after the 2007/08 economic crisis and the 2020 COVID-19 lockdowns. While these events increased inequality and should not be seen as a means to reduce emissions, they can provide insight into how emissions are impacted by income reductions, economic uncertainty, and mobility restrictions. This analysis, therefore, shines light on how emissions of different age and income groups are impacted by these shocks to showcase how future policy can reduce emissions without further increasing social inequalities. Moreover, this work provides insight into where rebound effects occur and how targeted policy can be used to reduce emissions more effectively. We conclude that, while all groups need to meet emissions substantially to meet climate goals, different policies are needed for different social cohorts. Such a targeted approach could ensure effective emission reductions, while increasing social equity.
In addition to this empirical work, general limitations and conclusions are discussed. These limitations cover data quality and access issues, as well as methodological limitations. It is concluded that, consumption-based accounting can be a useful tool in highlighting how emissions can be reduced and redistributed through changed consumption, to achieve emission reductions and increase social equity. Although consumption-based emissions are only one piece of the puzzle, calls and the need for demand-side mitigation are increasing. This thesis contributes to this discussion by further highlighting the need for demand side mitigation, and, thus, presents a timely method of analysis, as well as a spatial and longitudinal overview of consumption-based emissions of UK households.