Title: An Estimation and Analysis of CO2 Emission of Tourism Industry in Western Hunan Province, China
Abstract: With the rapid development of global tourism industry, its influence on the climate and environment have drawn more and more attention from international organizations and all walks of life.Scientifically and accurately estimating the CO2 emission and summarizing the development law of CO2 emission of the industry is the key to implement the low-carbon tourism. The research takes western Hunan province, China as an example to systematically estimate the energy consumption and CO2 emission of tourism industry there using the bottom-up approach and mathematical statistics. The results demonstrate that the CO2 emission of tourism industry in the region was 2985.4 kt in 2012, increasing at an annual rate of 5.53% on average. During 2001-2002, the tourism economy and the CO2 emission of tourism industry basically showed a weak decoupling relation, while they exhibited growing correlation during 2010-2012. The results suggest that the development of tourism industry in western Hunan province has become increasingly dependent on CO2 emission in pace with the changing structure of tourism-related transport. The results also reveal that the key to achieving the low-carbon tourism of the region is to realize the low-carbon tourism-related transport.