Carbon Prices and Cooking Fires: How Decarbonization Pathway Design Shapes Household Energy Burdens

Abstract

Pathways reaching the same climate target can distribute household energy costs very differently across income groups. We compare 16 core mitigation pathways spanning a cost-optimal benchmark and technology, timing, effort-sharing, and demand-side designs, plus one rebound sensitivity, within a common integrated assessment framework. All core pathways remain below 2°C and converge to approximately 1.5°C warming by 2100, consistent with the Paris Agreement's 1.5°C temperature goal. We translate energy- and food-price outcomes into household energy burdens across income deciles in India and the United States using survey-informed downscaling. In 2030, cost-optimal, technology, and pace pathways are regressive in both countries, with larger burden increases for poorer deciles. In India, lower-demand pathways reduce global carbon prices and lower burdens for poorer households, whereas accelerated electrification and rapid traditional-biomass phase-out raise burdens. Historical-responsibility transfers lower burdens in India and raise them in the United States under the stylized transfer design. A conventional gross-income sensitivity preserves pathway rankings and almost all decile-level burden-change signs but roughly halves poorest-decile magnitudes in India. Accounting for food expenditure therefore reveals affordability pressures on poorer households that gross-income measures mute. Scenario design is an equity-relevant dimension of pathway assessment alongside revenue recycling.