China's CO2 emissions: An innovative framework for analyzing carbon reduction in sustainable tourism under the guidance of the United Nations' sustainable development goals

Currently, insufficient attention has been given to reducing tourism's carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions (TCEs). Therefore, here, taking China as a case, we analyzed tourism's carbon reduction and sustainability by developing an innovative framework that incorporates social network analysis and the logarithmic mean Divisia index under the guidance of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals. The results showed that the TCEs exhibited an overall growth trend. East China had the highest share. West China exceeded central China after 2014. Structurally, tourism transportation was the largest emitter (more than 80%). The TCEs' spatial network was increasingly stable. Especially, the developed regions such as Jiangsu, Shanghai, Beijing, Tianjin, and Zhejiang were the centers of the network. So, these should be the key areas for CO2 reduction. Tourist scale was the main driver with a contribution of 165%. Tourism consumption (35%) and sectoral structure (3%) followed it. Inversely, energy intensity was the most important inhibiting factor (-85%), and spatial distribution structure (-18%) followed it. Therefore, it can be concluded that the new analytical framework can be effectively and successfully applied in China. And, some reasonable, low-carbon, or sustainable development countermeasures can be proposed for China's tourism.