Emission effects of China's rural revitalization: The nexus of infrastructure investment, household income, and direct residential CO₂ emissions

Direct residential CO₂ emissions (DRCEs) have grown rapidly in rural China over the last decade. To explore the relationship between the surge in per capita rural DRCEs and the implementation of rural revitalization, this study examined the nexus of infrastructure investment, household income, and DRCEs in rural China from 2009 to 2019 using Granger non-causality tests and mediation analyses. The results of tempo-spatial analyses disclose an emerging geographical convergence between rural DRCEs and rural infrastructure investments. It indicates that rural households in China are increasingly relying on public infrastructures for energy consumption. The regression results show that the positive influences of rural infrastructure investments on rural DRCEs varied in accordance with the investment structure. For a 1% increase in the per capita stock of rural energy and transportation infrastructure investments, the per capita rural DRCEs increase by 0.041% indirectly via income effects. For a 1% increase in the per capita stock of other rural infrastructure investments (e.g., water supply, sewage disposal, waste treatment, and environmental sanitation), the per capita rural DRCEs increase by 0.169% (0.136% directly and 0.033% indirectly via income effects). These findings indicate that countermeasures for the emission effects of rural revitalization are urgently needed to realize the climate goal. Overall, this study contributes to the existing literature on climate change in rural development by exploring the holistic emission effects of rural infrastructure investments based on a case study of China. The study also provides insights for other developing countries aimed at implementing low-carbon rural revitalization.