Volume 9: Sustainable Energy Solutions for Changing the World: Part I

Car ownership and household activity emissions in Japan — from the time-use perspective Yida Jiang, Tomohiko Ihara

Abstract

Car ownership significantly impacts the patterns in household consumption and time use. In this study, combining microdata from national expenditure survey and time use survey, carbon emissions of 85 daily household activities covering 24 hours in the day are estimated from a novel time-use perspective for Japanese households with and without private car ownership, respectively. Results indicate that while households with cars on average have higher emissions from transportation-related activities, their daily emissions from non-transportation activities are lower than households without cars. Policies targeting consumption behavior should therefore be devised based on the different activity emission patterns of different households.

Keywords carbon emission, car ownership, household activity, time-use, carbon mitigation, behavioral change