Exploring the effects of livelihood capital on clean cooking of rural households in the Tibetan region of China
Xin Qiu, Jianjun Jin, Chenyang Zhang, Dan Liu, Lin Li, Foyuan Kuang
Abstract
Identifying the effects of household livelihood on cooking fuel choices is key to promoting rural household energy transitions. However, the available evidence is limited. To fill the gap, this study aims to explore the effects of livelihood capital on clean cooking. Based on the survey data from 485 rural households, the boosted regression trees model was employed to identify these effects. The results signify that firewood predominated among all the cooking fuel types in the study area. Firewood consumption accounted for 82% of the total cooking fuel consumption. The per capita cooking fuel consumption in the study area was 358.39kgce in 2021 and it rose with the increase of household income. Most importantly, physical capital, financial capital, human capital, and social capital significantly facilitated household acceptance of clean cooking fuels with a relative influence of 34.58%, 21.38%, 15.29%, and 13.94%. However, natural capital restrained household adoption of clean cooking fuels. Our findings highlight the importance of livelihood capital in affecting clean cooking, provide a distinct study perspective for exploring other energy decisions in developing countries, and shed some light for the local government on formulating effective policies to promote the cooking energy transition of rural households.