Carbon Emissions of the Tourism Telecoupling System: Theoretical Framework, Model Specification and Synthesis Effects

Xiaofang Duan; Jinhe Zhang; Ping Sun; Honglei Zhang; Chang Wang; Ya-Yen Sun; Manfred Lenzen; Arunima Malik; Shanshan Cao; Yue Kan

doi:10.3390/ijerph19105984

Carbon Emissions of the Tourism Telecoupling System: Theoretical Framework, Model Specification and Synthesis Effects

Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 May 14;19(10):5984. doi: 10.3390/ijerph19105984.

Authors

Xiaofang Duan¹, Jinhe Zhang^{1

2}, Ping Sun³, Honglei Zhang¹, Chang Wang¹, Ya-Yen Sun⁴, Manfred Lenzen⁵, Arunima Malik⁵, Shanshan Cao¹, Yue Kan¹

Affiliations

¹ School of Geography and Ocean Science, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China.
² Huangshan Park Ecosystem Observation and Research Station, Ministry of Education, Huangshan 245000, China.
³ School of Management, Shandong University, Jinan 250100, China.
⁴ School of Business, The University of Queensland, Brisbane 4072, Australia.
⁵ School of Physics, The University of Sydney, Sydney 2006, Australia.

Abstract

The flows of people and material attributed to international tourism exert a major impact on the global environment. Tourism carbon emissions is the main indicator in this context. However, previous studies focused on estimating the emissions of destinations, ignoring the embodied emissions in tourists' origins and other areas. This study provides a comprehensive framework of a tourism telecoupling system. Taking China's international tourism as an example, we estimate the carbon emissions of its tourism telecoupling system based on the Tourism Satellite Account and input-output model. We find that (1) the proposal of a tourism telecoupling system provides a new perspective for analyzing the carbon emissions of a tourism system. The sending system (origins) and indirect spillover system (resource suppliers) have been ignored in previous studies. (2) In the telecoupling system of China's international tourism, the emission reduction effect of the sending system is significant. (3) The direct spillover system (transit) and indirect spillover system's spatial transfer effects of environment responsibility are remarkable. (4) There is a large carbon trade implied in international tourism. This study makes us pay attention to the carbon emissions of tourists' origins and the implied carbon trading in tourism flows.

Keywords: carbon emission; implied carbon trading; indirect spillover system; sending system; telecoupling; tourism telecoupling system.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Carbon Dioxide
Carbon*
Humans
Tourism*

Substances

Carbon Dioxide
Carbon

Grants and funding

This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant number 41771147, number 42001142, and number 42101218; and the Social Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province under Grant number: 19GLC012; and the Humanity and Social Science Foundation of Ministry of Education of China under Grant number: 21YJA630081.