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Environmental science and pollution research international
Jul, 2022;29 (31): 47082-47093.

Characteristics, decoupling effect, and driving factors of regional tourism's carbon emissions in China.

Guobao Xiong, Junhong Deng, Baogen Ding
Author Information
  1. Guobao Xiong: Research Center of Resource and Environmental Economics, East China University of Technology, 330013, Nanchang, China.
  2. Junhong Deng: Research Center of Resource and Environmental Economics, East China University of Technology, 330013, Nanchang, China. dengjunhong_a@163.com. ORCID
  3. Baogen Ding: Research Center of Resource and Environmental Economics, East China University of Technology, 330013, Nanchang, China.
PMID: 35175519 DOI: 10.1007/s11356-022-19054-9

Abstract

By revealing the temporal and spatial differentiation of China's regional tourism carbon emissions and its decoupling relationship with tourism economic growth and identifying the key factors affecting tourism carbon emissions, this paper is expected to provide a reference for the formulation and implementation of China's regional tourism industry emission reduction policies and measures. Using the tourism's carbon emission data of 30 provinces (cities) in China from 2007 to 2019, we have established a logarithmic mean Divisia index (LMDI) model to identify the main driving factors of carbon emissions related to tourism and a Tapio decoupling model to analyze the decoupling relationship between tourism's carbon emissions and tourism-driven economic growth. Our analysis suggests that China's regional tourism's carbon emissions are growing significantly with marked differences across its regions. Although there are observed fluctuations in the decoupling relationship between regional tourism's carbon emissions and tourism-driven economic growth in China, the data exhibit a primary characteristic of weak decoupling. Nonetheless, the degree of decoupling is rising to various extents across regions. Three of the five driving factors investigated are also found to affect emissions. Both tourism scale and tourism consumption lead to the growth of tourism's carbon emissions, while energy intensity has a significant effect on reducing emissions. These effects differ across regions.

Keywords

Carbon emission China Decoupling effect Factor decomposition LMDI model Tourism

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MeSH Term

Carbon
Carbon Dioxide
China
Economic Development
Tourism

Chemicals

Carbon Dioxide
Carbon
Journal Article

Word Cloud

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