Study on the Decoupling Effect and Driving Factors of Tourism Transportation Carbon Emissions in the Yangtze River Delta Region

Dongni Feng, Cheng Li () and Shiguo Deng
Additional contact information
Dongni Feng: College of Air Transportation, Shanghai University of Engineering Science, Shanghai 201600, China
Cheng Li: College of Air Transportation, Shanghai University of Engineering Science, Shanghai 201600, China
Shiguo Deng: College of Air Transportation, Shanghai University of Engineering Science, Shanghai 201600, China

Sustainability, 2025, vol. 17, issue 7, 1-23

Abstract: As a key region in China’s “dual carbon” strategy, the Yangtze River Delta region faces the dual challenge of sustaining tourism-driven economic growth and achieving significant emission reductions. Based on panel data of the Yangtze River Delta region from 2000 to 2022, this paper adopts the “bottom-up” method to measure the carbon emissions of tourism transportation. It systematically analyzes its spatiotemporal evolution, decoupling effect, and driving mechanism. The results showed that (1) regional carbon emissions showed a trend of “first rising and then decreasing”. The spatial distribution changed from “high in the east and low in the west” to central agglomeration, and the hot spots of high emissions continued to concentrate in Shanghai and its surrounding cities, reaching a peak in 2019. (2) The decoupling state is mainly weak decoupling. The environmental Kuznets curve verified that carbon emissions and the tourism economy showed an inverted U-shaped relationship, and the decoupling levels of cities were significantly different. (3) Gross Domestic Product and the scale of tourist flow of cultural facilities (grey correlation degree 0.925) are the core positive drivers. In contrast, the travel ratio (contribution value −215.9) and the scale of passenger flow in A-class scenic spots (correlation degree 0.876) are the key inhibiting factors. This paper proposes a three-pronged policy framework of “energy structure optimization—cross-city carbon compensation—cultural and tourism integration” to provide theoretical and empirical support for the low-carbon transformation of urban agglomerations.

Keywords: tourism and transportation; carbon emission; Yangtze River Delta region; spatiotemporal evolution characteristics; decoupling effect; influencing factors (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/7/3056/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/7/3056/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:17:y:2025:i:7:p:3056-:d:1623965

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().