Hundreds of millions of rural residents
have migrated to cities
in China in recent years. Different lifestyles and living conditions
lead to substantial changes in their household energy. Here, we present
the result of a survey on direct household energy use of low-skilled
rural-to-urban migrants in Beijing. The migrants moved up the energy
ladder immediately after arriving in the city by replacing biomass
fuels with coal, electricity, and liquefied petroleum gas. After the
original shift, pattern of household energy use by the migrants has
not changed much over decades, likely due to the long-existing household
registration system (Hukou). As a result, the mix of energy types
used by the rural-to-urban migrants were different from those by long-term
urban residents, although total quantities were similar. Shifting
from biomass fuels to coal, the migrants emitted 2.4 times more non-neutral
CO<sub>2</sub> than rural residents and 14% more than urban residents.
The migration also resulted in significant increase in emissions of
SO<sub>2</sub> and mercury but dramatic decreases in some incomplete
combustion products including particulate matter. All these changes
have significant implication on air quality, health, and climate considering
the scale of urbanization in China
