Assessing the impacts of fertility and retirement policies on China’s carbon emissions
Abstract The gradual adjustment of fertility and retirement policies in China has social benefits in terms of coping with population aging. However, the environmental consequences of these policies remain ambiguous. Here we compile environmentally extended multiregional input–output tables to estimate household carbon footprints for different population age groups in China. Subsequently, we estimate the age-sex-specific population under different fertility policies up to 2060 and assess the impacts of fertility and retirement policies on household carbon footprints. We find that Chinese young people have relatively higher household carbon footprints than their older counterparts due to differences in income by age group. Relaxing fertility policies and delaying retirement age are associated with an increase in population (and labour supply) and thus increases in household carbon footprints, with the majority of these increases from the fertility side. These results may help policymakers understand interactions among those measures targeting population aging and climate action.
Authors
- Wenjia Cai (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4436-512X)
- Kehan He (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8553-0048)
- Jiali Zheng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7424-2462)
- Junai Yang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1053-858X)
- Shouyang Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5773-998X)
- Xinlu Sun (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8776-3400)
- Ling Tang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2522-9675)
- Zhifu Mi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8106-0694)
- Paul Drummond (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6921-0474)
- Lu Cheng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1460-8108)
- Ling Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5738-1551)
- Jinkai Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6121-5871)
Institutions
- Beijing Institute of Technology (CN)
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- ShanghaiTech University (CN)
- Academy of Mathematics and Systems Science (CN)
- Centre for Sustainable Energy (GB)
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- University College London (GB)
- Renmin University of China (CN)
- Xi'an Jiaotong University (CN)
- University of Hong Kong (HK)
- Capital University of Economics and Business (CN)
- Tsinghua University (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nature Climate Change
- Published
- 2024-10-11
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-024-02162-4
- Citations
- 21
- Primary Topic
- Global Health Care Issues
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 17.84
Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- China Scholarship Council
- Natural Science Foundation of Beijing Municipality
- National Office for Philosophy and Social Sciences