The unequal impacts of extremely high temperatures on households’ adaptive behaviors: Empirical evidence from fine-grained electricity consumption data

Abstract

Climate change is predicted to result in more frequent extreme weather conditions and large temperature shocks. Existing research has largely focused on exploring the response relationship between temperature and energy consumption, however, adaptability gaps among different income groups during extremely high temperatures remain unclear. This study examines the effect of temperature shocks on electricity consumption using high-frequency and fine-grained data from 68,540 Chinese households. The results indicate that the poverty-stricken households' electricity consumption is only 65.2% of the urban households’ as responsive to high temperatures. Additionally, the heatwaves and the tiered price induce the bigger adaptability gaps. For the occurrence of heatwave disasters on hot days, electricity consumption decreases by 0.95% for poverty-stricken households, while increasing by 0.52% for urban households. When the cost of electricity rises, the adaptability for poverty-stricken households is 1.87 and 2.89 times weaker than that of urban and rural households, respectively. Using different scenarios of projected future temperatures, we estimate that the average adaptability gaps will increase by 0.76–3.64% in the middle term and 1.53–5.07% in the long term among poverty-stricken households and other groups. These findings highlight the importance of adaptation strategies to climate change, particularly for poverty-stricken households.