Analyses of the level and determinants of household carbon emissions in developed countries are abundant in the literature but very limited in developing countries. Hence, this paper presents an estimation of Philippine households’ carbon emissions embodied in the consumption of various goods and services and investigates its determinants. We derive total household carbon emissions by combining input-output analysis with household expenditure for 2000 and 2006. Our estimation shows that household consumption related to fuel, light and transportation are the most carbon intensive goods while nondurable goods are the least carbon intensive. After controlling for household characteristics, the analyses reveal that income has a significant nonlinear relationship with carbon emission depicting an inverted Ushaped.
However, when using an asset index as proxy for households’ economic status, no turning point is observed and emissions increase as households accumulate more assets. This is further supported by quintile estimates showing that there is a huge disparity in emissions between poor and rich households. Unless consumption patterns change, it is likely that there will be further increases in carbon emissions as households get richer.