A way forward to end energy poverty in China: Role of carbon-cutting targets and net-zero commitments

This paper investigates the impact of carbon-cutting targets and net-zero commitments on energy poverty (EP) in China, taking into account technological innovation (TECH), energy consumption (EC), urbanization (UR), and economic growth (GDP). Using panel data from 30 Chinese cities covering the period 2004–2017, we apply the MM-QR and Non-Causality techniques (Juodis et al., 2021) to obtain robust empirical results. Our analysis reveals that the effect of carbon-cutting targets weakens from the 10th to the 90th quintile, suggesting that some Chinese provinces have successfully reduced carbon intensity and are moving towards a net-zero CO2 emission. Furthermore, our findings indicate that economic growth and patent filings contribute to reducing energy poverty in the selected provinces, while total energy consumption and urbanization tend to increase energy poverty across different quantiles. Based on these results, we propose innovative policy recommendations aimed at ending energy poverty in China.