Spatiotemporal Characteristics of the Correlation among Tourism, CO2 Emissions, and Economic Growth in China

Abstract

Elucidating the correlation among tourism, CO2 emissions, and economic growth from a spatiotemporal standpoint is of utmost significance for the tourism industry responding to China’s “double-carbon” goal. This study expansively uses the bottom-up approach, Theil index, Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis (ESDA), and Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index (LMDI) method to calculate tourism CO2 emissions (TE) at different spatial scales in China during 2000–2019, and based on the TE, we further analyze the spatial heterogeneity of the TE intensity (TEI) and examine the spatiotemporal effects of driving factors on TE increases. The results revealed that (i) China’s TE increased from 3714.06 × 104 t to 19,396.00 × 104 t, and the TEI declined from 47 to 9 g/yuan during 2000–2019. (ii) The high-TEI provinces varied from agglomerative distribution in the north by western region to scattered distribution in the eastern region. (iii) China’s TEI exhibited increasing spatial differences, primarily within regions during 2000–2009, which also distributed with both the global and local agglomeration in space before 2014, and since then, only the local agglomeration enhanced and characterized by diffusing low–low (L–L) agglomeration from the east to the central and west regions. (iv) The tourism industrial scale and the industrial economy exerted cumulative effects on TE increases, and the energy intensity and energy structure exerted reduction effects. The spatial structure played different roles on TE among the regions. Policy implications are also discussed depending on the study results.