Whose House is on Fire? Identifying Socio-Demographic and Housing Characteristics Driving Differences in the UK Household Co2 Emissions

This study analyses housing energy carbon emissions of UK households based on expenditure data of wave nine of the household panel study "Understanding Society" (UKHLS). Results obtained from a cross-sectional multivariate regression analysis indicate that the main determinants of housing carbon dioxide emissions are the use of oil heating, living space and household size. We propose carbon emission quartiles to be our central unit of descriptive analysis. These can be understood as clusters of households with similar patterns of resource and energy use. We find large differences of socio-demographic and housing characteristics between these quartiles and derive corresponding household emission profiles. Throughout this study, we use per capita emissions which account for differences in household size as a complementary, and sometimes better, measure than household net emissions. Our methods and findings may help to improve the representation of inequalities in global and national human- environment interaction modeling approaches. We propose a promising method to operationalize socio-metabolic class theory and thus contribute to the understanding of human agency and structures in the context of social change. We identify climate mitigation potentials and possible levers for a low-carbon transition