Research On Carbon Emission Measurement And Peak Path Of Tourism Based On LEAP Model

With the global average temperature rising closer to the target of 1.5oC,it is becoming more and more urgent to study the impact of climate change.Mitigation of climate change is an urgent task for sustainable development,and it is also a practical issue of common concern to the whole society.China has repeatedly expressed its efforts to reach the peak of carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 from the general debate of the United Nations General Assembly in September 2020 to the climate ambition summit held in December,and to strive to achieve the carbon neutral by 2060.China has developed into the world’s largest tourist market.Under the background of global warming,China’s huge tourism activities and the resulting greenhouse gas（GHG）emissions are becoming a special concern.Looking at the domestic and foreign research trends,researchers have not been a unified understanding of the scale and measurement methods of tourism industry.There are theoretical puzzles in the measurement and evaluation of tourism industry in the theoretical and practical sectors at home and abroad.Only by making clear the measurement boundary of tourism,the measurement boundary of tourism carbon emission,the source of tourism carbon,can we clear the mechanism of tourism carbon emission,and find the most primitive rule in the changing world.Secondly,the"carbon peak"of tourism is still a policy gap.To set the peak target of tourism in China is the most effective measure to achieve the peak emission of GHGs in tourism industry.Under the situation of national carbon peak target,how does tourism contribute to industry strength?The research on carbon peak of tourism is the key point.In order to describe the path of tourism carbon emission,this paper,based on a comprehensive review of the research on tourism carbon emissions,establishes a LEAP-Tourism model with the whole life cycle of tourism energy flow by using time series analysis,material flow analysis,LEAP model and scenario analysis method.It measures the GHG emissions of tourism industry from 2011 to2017.Based on the benchmark in 2017,business as usual scenarios（BAU）and integrated scenarios（INT）（including five sub-scenarios:department structure optimization sub-scenario（DSO）,clean energy substitution sub-scenario（CES）,energy saving facilities sub-scenario（ESF）,energy efficiency improvement sub-scenario（EEI）,low carbon behavior sub-scenarios（LCB））are designed to forecast and observe the peak energy demand and GHG emission of China’s tourism industry in 2018-2050.Based on this,the tourism industry is proposed the carbon neutral strategy,the carbon emission of China tourism industry is studied deeply and systematically,and the following main conclusions are obtained:Firstly,his paper explained the boundary and mechanism of GHG emission in tourism.Based on the life cycle theory and material flow analysis,from the perspective of carbon source,this paper defines that tourism carbon emission refers to the total carbon emissions generated by tourism,which is the direct and indirect carbon emissions brought by the supply and conversion of resources in the process of tourism material flow,the energy consumption in the process of tourism activities and the treatment of tourism waste.It can be divided into four processes:material and energy input process,material and energy conversion process,tourism system operation process,tourism effect output process.Secondly,this paper constructed the model of the GHG emission system of tourism industry.The energy environment model LEAP-Tourism model can model the emission of tourism GHGs,and supplement the life cycle process and mechanism of energy utilization from exploitation,transportation,processing,transformation,transmission and distribution to terminal utilization from the perspective of tourism consumption department.The main body of LEAP-Tourism model is composed of three core modules:demand,transformation and resources.Among them,the demand module includes the types and quantity of energy demand from tourism departments and the waste produced,which is divided into four levels.The conversion module is the energy processing and conversion,including gas production,coal products processing,coal washing,refining,heating,coking,thermal power generation and transportation loss,which is the conversion of primary energy into secondary energy and indirect sources of GHG emission.The resource module includes the supply of primary and secondary energy.Thirdly,this paper measured the GHG emissions of tourism industry.The calculation of LEAP-Tourism model shows that the energy consumption of tourism industry in China increased from 125.49 Mtce in 2011 to 271.66 Mtce in 2017,up116.48%,and the use of diesel and gasoline was the most.In 2017,the total emission of GHG in tourism reached 605.34 Mt CO_2e,with the emission intensity decreasing year by year,from 1.2899 t CO_2e/10⁴yuan in 2011 to 1.1209 t CO_2e/10⁴yuan in 2017.From the perspective of the emission departments of GHG in tourism,the main sectors are tourism transportation,but the emissions of tourism catering,tourism shopping,tourism accommodation and tourism waste can not be underestimated.Besides carbon dioxide,methane,nitrogen oxide,and suspended particles can not be ignored.Fourthly,this paper predicted the peak path of GHG emission in tourism industry.（1）Based on the time series prediction model of synergistic,the prediction model of tourism income is determined as Y=21707.28-2857.87*u+700282.49*u²-591899.32*u³.The income of tourism in 2018-2050 is determined as the driving factor of the model.According to the energy conservation and emission reduction policies from the country and tourism,and the future prediction,the BAU scenario and INT scenario are designed.It also quantifies the policy measures,trying to make up for the neglect of policy effect in previous studies.（2）From the perspective of energy demand,the total energy demand increased from 238.86 Mtce in 2017 to 727.96 Mtce in 2050.Under the INT scenario,the growth rate of total energy consumption has slowed down significantly.2050 was69.35%of the BAU scenario,504.86 Mtce.From the perspective of the department consumption demand,the transportation sector accounts for the largest proportion of energy demand in each scenario tourism sub sector.From the perspective of energy category,gasoline and diesel occupy an absolute position under the BAU scenario.In the INT scenario,electricity becomes the most energy type.（3）According to the peak reaching situation of each scenario,in 2050,the emission of GHG in tourism industry is 1621.79 Mt CO_2e,1.68 times higher than2017,with an average annual growth rate of 0.0499.Under the INT scenario,the peak value appears in 2032,and the average annual growth rate of the integrated scenario is 0.0256.In addition to the peak of INT scenarios,the peak year of CES sub-scenarios appeared in 2037,the peak year of ESF sub-scenarios and LCB sub-scenarios was 2038.From the long-term goal,the earlier China reaches the peak,the lower the peak,the shorter the platform period of the peak,the faster the decline rate after the peak value,and the earlier the carbon neutral target is achieved.（4）From the peak of tourism departments,the emission of GHGs from tourism and catering and sightseeing departments in the INT scenario reaches peak in 2029,which indicates that the call of"Clean Your Plate Campaign"is a favorable measure to achieve the goal of energy conservation and emission reduction.In transportation,highway transportation is the most GHG emission in tourism and transportation sector,accounting for 60%-70%.Therefore,the reduction of road transportation is very important to the emission reduction of the transportation sector,and also the key department of carbon peak in tourism industry.（5）From the perspective of energy conservation and emission reduction potential,if all energy conservation policies and measures are implemented,the potential of energy conservation and emission reduction in tourism will gradually increase.The energy saving potential increased from 118.22 Mtce Mtce in 2030 to223.10 Mtce in 2050.The potential for emission reduction increased from 283.14Mt CO_2ein 2030 to 897.38 Mt CO_2ein 2050.From the perspective of the contribution rate of energy conservation and emission reduction in each scenario,the energy saving contribution rate of ESF sub-scenario is the largest,and the contribution rate of CES sub-scenario is the largest.From the contribution rate of each department,the contribution rate of energy conservation and emission reduction in the transportation sector is the largest.（6）The peak time of the tourism industry in this study lags behind the national peak time.The reasons are as follows:first,the rapid growth of tourism brings great challenges to energy conservation and emission reduction.Second,the service of tourism makes it difficult to make tough rules in many aspects.Third,the policy situation set up by this research is conservative and soft.Fourth,the study does not calculate the carbon sink of tourism,so the predicted GHG in tourism industry will be higher.Fifthly,this paper evaluated the emission of GHGs and the state of tourism economy.Based on decoupling theory,from the perspective of decoupling relationship between tourism income and GHG emissions,there are three decoupling scenarios,namely,growth link,weak decoupling and strong decoupling,among which strong decoupling is the best and ideal state to realize low-carbon development of tourism.The results show that the earlier the peak time is,it is helpful to realize the strong decoupling state,and there is a relationship between them.Decoupling state can provide the relationship between tourism income and GHG emissions.In the future,it can be used as the coupling index of economic index and environmental index to judge sustainable development or high-quality development.Sixth,this paper putted forward the tourism carbon neutral countermeasures.The countermeasures of carbon emission reduction in tourism industry are considered from three aspects:government,departments and tourists.We should give full play to the guiding and supervising role of government departments,and formulate and implement relevant policies.Tourism department implement various energy conservation and emission reduction measures,and tourists improve their environmental awareness and responsibility of energy conservation and emission reduction.It is an important way to achieve the peak of tourism as soon as possible to set the peak goal of tourism,make the travel of tourism low-carbon and green tourism energy.Tourism carbon compensation from the government,regions,scenic spots and tourists four aspects of compensation strategy.This study has made three important contributions in the research of tourism carbon emissions:（1）It clarified the mechanism of GHG emissions from tourism.This study explored a new perspective of GHG emissions from tourism,and deepened the understanding of GHG emissions from material flow in different stages of tourism life cycle,in order to fill the lack of previous research on the mechanism of GHG emissions from tourism.Based on the life cycle theory and material flow analysis,this paper constructs the mechanism of tourism carbon emission,which can be divided into four processes:material and energy input process,material and energy conversion process,tourism system operation process and tourism effect output process.（2）The tourism energy environment model is constructed.LEAP-Tourism model can simulate the GHG emissions of tourism energy in the process of mining,transportation,processing,conversion,transmission and distribution and terminal utilization.It can also build complex simulation scenarios and data structures to realize a series of quantitative simulation and dimulation of GHG emissions in tourism system under the development of tourism and technological progress.Compared with other research methods,it also enriches the carbon source composition and GHG types of tourism industry,and refines the tourism sector.（3）The carbon peak path of tourism is predicted.A new method for evaluating peak time and peak velocity of GHG emission in tourism is established.Through the prediction of the macro operation trend of tourism,the paper calculates and simulates the GHG emission of tourism industry by multi factors and combination of the driving factors mainly based on tourism economic income and the intervention of policy measures.The peak of GHG emissions in tourism industry in China is predicted for the first time,which can be used as reference for other industries with similar properties to study energy consumption and GHG emissions.The research evaluates the peak time and speed of carbon emission reduction in tourism industry according to credible national policies,optimizes the path of energy conservation and emission reduction in tourism,which has strong application value in policy quantification and technology level scenario analysis.