Research On Measuring Carbon Dioxide Emissions From Tourism And Mechanism Of Tourist Carbon-reducing

Climate change is projected to impact tourism is closely in various ways, however, tourism also contributes to climate change through the emission of carbon dioxide through transport, accommodation and other tourist activities. Now low-carbon tourism is becoming a popular choice to protect the environment for tourists. A lot of people are already accepted the low-carbon conception, and more and more people like it. But there are still numerous hurdles on the road to really achieve low-carbon in our travels, because there is a large amount of direct energy consumption in the form of fossil fuels or indirect energy consumption in the form of electricity during the whole journey. And this consumption directly leads to the emission of carbon dioxide. According to international experience, measuring carbon dioxide emissions from tourism is a key step to developing low-carbon tourism. However, the study of low-carbon tourism in China is still in its initial stage. Under the background of global energy conservation and emissions reduction, this paper build up a rational method for measuring carbon dioxide emissions from tourism and tourist attractions which is according with the situation of Chinese tourism. Taking the Yangtze River Delta as the scope of research, we attempt to measure carbon dioxide emissions from tourism and tourist attractions of Jiangsu, Zhejiang provinces and Shanghai, and then contrast and analyze the results of measurement. This paper includes seven chapters, each of which is summarized as the following.Chapter1, introduction. This chapter gives a description of the research mentality. The author elaborates the research background and the research significance, and then expounds the research objectives, the primary coverage, methods and the train of thought.Chapter2, the overview of related theoretic basis and research progress. This chapter firstly defines the related basic concepts, such as carbon source, carbon sink, carbon neutral and so on. And then the chapter gives a detailed description about relative supporting theories and their applications in tourism researcher in turn, including Sustainable Development theory, Circular Economy theory, Ecological Footprint theory and Decoupling theory. Furthermore, the latest research status in the corresponding field are reviewed and summarized, including researches in global climatic change, ecological tourism, low-carbon economy, low-carbon society and low-carbon city. After these, the low-carbon tourism developing situation and tendency in China and foreign are expoundedChapter3, the method of measuring carbon dioxide emissions from tourism. In this chapter, the methods of measuring carbon dioxide emissions from tourism are studied by consulting domestic and abroad relevant references. The methods of measuring carbon dioxide emissions common used in other fields are summarized. Through the literature studies, the researches of measuring tourist carbon emissions are divided into two broad categories:measuring carbon dioxide emissions of tourist industry and measuring carbon dioxide emissions of tourist destination, and then, the methods of the two categories have been summarized and analyzed with foreign research cases respectively. On this basis, the methods of measuring carbon dioxide emissions from tourism are studied in two aspects: tourism industry and tourism attraction. Firstly, the author builds up a rational method for measuring carbon dioxide emissions from tourism industry which is according with the situation of Chinese tourism. This measurement can strip tourist energy consumptions away from energy consumptions by related industries by using "tourist consuming minus coefficient". Secondly, the author builds up the framework and method for measuring carbon dioxide emissions from tourism attraction from both system structure and life cycle perspectives.Chapter4, measuring carbon dioxide emissions from the tourism industry in Yangtze River Delta. Based on the review of the tourism development in Yangtze River Delta, this chapter attempt to measure carbon dioxide emissions from tourism of Jiangsu, Zhejiang provinces and Shanghai by using the method which has been built up in chapter3, and then contrast and analyze the results of measurement.Chapter5, measuring carbon dioxide emissions from the tourism attractions in Yangtze River Delta. Based on the analysis of the types of tourism attractions in Yangtze River Delta, the author chooses two tourism attractions:The Sun Yat-sen’s Mausoleum national park and Xitang historic town to measure carbon dioxide emissions by using the framework and the method which has been built up in chapter3.Chapters6, study on the operational mechanism of reducing tourist carbon dioxide emissions. In this chapter, the main achievements in the low-carbon tourism in recent years are reviewed, and the problems and restrictive factors are analyzed. In this foundation, this chapter believes that reducing tourist carbon dioxide emissions should depends largely on the cooperation among government, tourist destinations, tourism companies and tourists, and explores the implementing mechanisms of reducing tourist carbon dioxide emissions from three aspects:tourism planning, carbon market and management. Moreover, some technologies which powerfully support to reduce tourist carbon dioxide emissions are elaborated. Additionally, taking the Sun Yat-sen’s Mausoleum national park and Xitang historic town as example, some countermeasures and suggestions are presented to the construction of a low-carbon natural or cultural tourism attraction.Chapters7, conclusion and discussion. In conclusion, the author sums up the main results and the creative works of this study. And in discussion, the author discusses problems and prospects in this study.Based on above work, this paper has made the following innovative achievements.Firstly, starting from the angle of tourism energy consumption, this paper builds up a measurement that strip tourist energy consumptions away from energy consumptions by related industries by using "tourist consuming minus coefficient". With taking the Yangtze River Delta as the example, the feasibility and validity of the measurement are demonstrated by experiment measured result.Secondly, this paper builds up a framework and method for measuring carbon dioxide emissions from tourism attraction from both system structure and life cycle perspectives, and expounds its concrete steps. During the analysis, the paper highlights the spatiality and entity of tourist attractions, and analyzes the constitution of carbon dioxide emissions in whole process of tourism attraction from constructing, developing until decaying. And the measurement and analysis are made by combining the example of the Sun Yat-sen’s Mausoleum national park and Xitang historic town.Finally, according to the main content of tourism master planning and tourism detailed planning, the paper puts forward the key points of tourism planning in order to reduce carbon dioxide emissions of tourist attractions. This wok stressed the importance of tourism planning which is often neglected, and provides new ideas for construction of low-carbon tourism attraction.