Threshold effects of population aging on carbon emissions: From the perspective of industrial structure and residential consumption

Yiying Li; Qin Zhu; Taoyuan Wei

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.164654

Threshold effects of population aging on carbon emissions: From the perspective of industrial structure and residential consumption

Sci Total Environ. 2023 Sep 15:891:164654. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.164654. Epub 2023 Jun 6.

Authors

Yiying Li¹, Qin Zhu², Taoyuan Wei³

Affiliations

¹ School of Social Development and Public Policy, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China. Electronic address: yiyingli21@m.fudan.edu.cn.
² School of Social Development and Public Policy, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China. Electronic address: zhuqin@fudan.edu.cn.
³ CICERO Center for International Climate Research, 0318 Oslo, Norway. Electronic address: taoyuan.wei@cicero.oslo.no.

PMID: 37286005
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.164654

Abstract

Population aging and climate change caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are two of the major challenges facing contemporary humanity. Based on panel data for 63 countries from 2000 to 2020, this paper empirically identifies and explores the threshold effects of population aging on carbon emissions, and tests in a causal inference framework the mediating effect mechanism of aging on carbon emissions through two pathways: industrial structure and consumption. Results show that generally when the percentage of the elderly population is higher than 14.5 %, carbon emissions related to industrial structure and residential consumption are significantly reduced although the threshold effects differ across countries. Particularly for lower-middle-income countries, the direction of the threshold effect is uncertain, which indicates the less importance of population aging for carbon emissions in these countries.

Keywords: Carbon emissions; Mediating effect; Panel threshold model; Population aging.