Outsourcing carbon emissions of the expanding affluent groups in China

China is building a society of common prosperity by enlarging its middle-income and affluent groups. Following current unsustainable consumption patterns, rising affluence may lead to additional carbon leakage through imports of goods and services for consumption in China. In this paper, we quantify outsourced carbon emissions that accompany the expansion of China's affluent group and identify its socio-economic driving factors. The result shows that China outsourced 151Mt of carbon emissions to fulfill household consumption in 2012, where the affluent group, 22% of the population, was responsible for almost half. In 2017, affluent group expansion induced an additional 44Mt of emissions, which is 1.3 times that of the entire household, as the shrinking low-income group partly offset. Affluent group's consumption scale, the predominant factor, contributed 120% to the increment. However, outsourcing from China had only <1/10 the marginal carbon intensity compared to high-intensity countries, helping them grow economies at a lower emission.