The Role of US Households in Global Carbon Emissions

United States (US) is currently responsible for about 20% of global carbon emissions. The residential sector is responsible for a little over 20% of this emission. From this perspective, US households account for about 4% of global carbon emissions. Such sector-based approach is commonly used in energy analysis and energy policy. However, this is not necessarily a complete representation of the reality of household carbon emissions. The residential sector includes all energy directly used by homes and related carbon emissions. Two important elements are missing in this approach: energy used for transportation by people living in these homes and the embodied energy in all non-energy goods and services consumed by them. Another approach for reporting household emissions, based on the various end uses of energy in US homes, provides a more detailed understanding of the use of energy for heating, cooling, cooking, appliances, consumer electronics and automobiles. This approach also falls short of identifying emissions beyond the residential sector and personal transportation sub-sector. There is, however, another way of estimating total household carbon emissions. The industrial sector produces products that are transported by the transportation sector and marketed by the commercial sector and eventually consumed by people. Therefore, people in the US consume energy directly in the form of electricity, natural gas, and other fuels for their homes and automobiles. They also consume energy indirectly through the consumptions of various products and services. Combining the emissions related to the direct and indirect consumption of energy, people are accountable for about 71% of US carbon emissions (Shammin & Bullard, 2009) – which is significantly higher than the 20% represented by the residential sector. According to this approach, US households account for about 14% of global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions – roughly equal to the total emissions of the 27 member states of the European Union. People in the US thus have a significant opportunity to contribute to the reduction of global carbon emission1.