ABSTRACT
China and its 1.3 billion inhabitants currently release more greenhouse gases (GHG) into the atmosphere than any other country on earth. This chapter discusses the data from three questions relating to households attitude toward car and home appliances use, and a question about respondents thoughts and suggestions in the cities of Xian and Wuhan. Household surveys were administered through stratified random sampling procedures to over 1,000 households in each of the cities. The results were quite similar between the cities, data from one city, Xian, was analyzed by subjecting it to Principal Component Analysis (PCA) in an effort to better understand the factors underlying the responses and the areas in which the responses could be grouped into meaningful categories. The chapter shows a clear indication of the willingness among the Chinese public to make efforts in reducing energy use and carbon emissions, although the most important consideration was not to benefit the environment but rather for more pragmatic reasons.
