2.2 Household carbon footprints in other developed countries

Although the mean carbon footprints per person vary in different Global North countries, depending on their energy supply system, climate and economy, their main components are broadly similar to those for the UK. There follows a brief comparison between four European countries and the USA.

A major survey of household consumption in four European countries – France, Germany, Sweden and Norway – was used to calculate their carbon footprints and provide a broad breakdown of those footprints (Dubois et al., 2019). This study showed that the median carbon footprints of the surveyed households in these four countries ranged from 7.3 to 11.3 tonnes CO₂e per year, excluding public and government services. The main components were transport (34%) followed by food consumption, mainly from eating red meat and dairy products (30%); housing and energy use, mainly from home heating (21%); and then other consumption of goods and services (15%).

The components of the mean household footprint for these European countries are similar to the personal footprint pattern for the UK (shown in Figures 3 and 4). As in the UK, the study found that heavier carbon footprints were strongly associated with higher household incomes. Whereas for the USA, on average, residents have one of the largest carbon footprints in the world, at about 16 tonnes CO₂e per person. One study provided a breakdown of American household carbon footprints (Union of Concerned Scientists, 2019). As with the other Global North countries, the main components of American household footprints were home energy use, which included air conditioning as well as heating (hence the high 31% share), transport (28%), food consumption (14%), and goods and services consumption (26%).