Intertemporal lifestyle changes and carbon emissions: Evidence from a China household survey

This paper examines the endogenous evolution of household consumption patterns and household carbon emissions (HCEs) by integrating the analysis methods of income distribution with climate change. Based on a large-scale household survey spanning from 2012 to 2016 in China, we estimated the direct and indirect HCEs, observed inverse U-shaped Carbon Kuznets Curves (CKC) and significant changes in HCEs over the period at the household level. Applying the Oaxaca-Blinder method, we decomposed factors causing the changes in HCEs and found that income and demographic effects contribute only 25.1% to the total increase of HCEs. The other 74.9% remain unexplained and we define them as the effect of intertemporal lifestyle changes. Further analysis from multiple perspectives illustrates that the lifestyles of households across various social strata are becoming increasingly higher carbon-intensive over time even though the income remains unchanged. The findings indicate that existing modeling and projections of carbon emissions based on income and household characteristics may underestimate the future emissions pressure from the household sector. Hence, we conclude that in order to reach more meaningful results, the increasing effect of lifestyles should be taken into account when conducting climate change studies and formulating climate policies.This work was supported by the National Social Science Foundation of China (No. 15BTJ021; No. 14BJY047), National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 71828401; No. 71803040; No. 71603050) and China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (No. 2018T110817), Humanity and Social Science Foundation of Ministry of Education of China (No. 19YJAZH079)

Transcriptome Analyses Reveal the Aroma Terpeniods Biosynthesis Pathways of <i>Primula forbesii</i> Franch. and the Functional Characterization of the <i>PfDXS2</i> Gene

Primula forbesii Franch. is a unique biennial herb with a strong floral fragrance, making it an excellent material for studying the aroma characteristics of the genus Primula. The floral scent is an important ornamental trait that facilitates fertilization. However, the molecular mechanism regulating the floral scent in Primula is unknown. In order to better understand the biological mechanisms of floral scents in this species, this study used RNA sequencing analysis to discuss the first transcriptome sequence of four flowering stages of P. forbesii, which generated 12 P. forbesii cDNA libraries with 79.64 Gb of clean data that formed 51,849 unigenes. Moreover, 53.26% of the unigenes were annotated using public databases. P. forbesii contained 44 candidate genes covering all known enzymatic steps for the biosynthesis of volatile terpenes, the major contributor to the flower’s scent. Finally, 1-deoxy-d-xylulose 5-phosphate synthase gene of P. forbesii (PfDXS2, MK370094), the first key enzyme gene in the 2-c-methyl-d-erythritol 4-phosphate (MEP) pathway of terpenoids, was cloned and functionally verified using virus-induced gene silencing (VIGs). The results showed that PfDXS2-silencing significantly reduced the relative concentrations of main volatile terpenes. This report is the first to present molecular data related to aroma metabolites biosynthesis pathways and the functional characterization of any P. forbesii gene. The data on RNA sequencing provide comprehensive information for further analysis of other plants of the genus Primula