Chi­na has enact­ed a series of poli­cies since 2015 to sub­sti­tute elec­tric­i­ty for in-home

com­bus­tion for rur­al res­i­den­tial heat­ing. The Elec­tric Heat­ing Pol­i­cy (EHP) has con­tributed to

sig­nif­i­cant improve­ments in air qual­i­ty, ben­e­fit­ing hun­dreds of mil­lions of peo­ple. This shift,

how­ev­er, has result­ed in a sharp increase in elec­tric loads and asso­ci­at­ed car­bon emissions.

Here, we show that China’s EHP will great­ly increase car­bon emis­sions. We devel­op a

the­o­ret­i­cal mod­el to quan­ti­fy the car­bon emis­sions from pow­er gen­er­a­tion and rur­al residential

heat­ing sec­tors. We found that in 2015, an addi­tion­al 101.69–162.89 mega­tons of CO2

could poten­tial­ly be emit­ted if EHP was imple­ment­ed in 45–55% of rur­al res­i­dents in

North­ern Chi­na. In 2020, the incre­men­tal car­bon emis­sion is expect­ed to reach

130.03–197.87 mega­tons. For­tu­nate­ly, the growth of car­bon emis­sion will slow down due to

China’s urban­iza­tion progress. In 2030, the car­bon emis­sion increase induced by EHP will

drop to 119.19–177.47 mega­tons. Final­ly, we con­clude two kinds of prac­ti­cal path­ways toward

low-car­bon elec­tric heat­ing, and pro­vide tech­no-eco­nom­ic analyses.