Carbon dioxide emissions from transport in Taiwan's national parks

Transport profoundly affects energy use and carbon dioxide emissions in the tourism sector. This study focuses on five national parks in Taiwan, namely Kenting National Park, Yushan National Park, Yangmingshan National Park, Taroko National Park and Sheipa National Park, and applies a bottom-up approach to determine the amount of CO2 emissions from domestic tourism transport in 1999–2006. The CO2 emission factor of private car derived in this study reveals a higher value than that of previous study due to its lower load factors. Moreover, CO2 emissions per person are different in each national park, influenced by the attributes of travel distance and transport mode. The scenario analysis indicates that CO2 emission can be reduced by increasing load factors of transport, tourist switching from private cars to public transport and going to destinations close to their points of departure, which can be achieved by authorities through activity management, regulation control and price adjustment. This is also an adequate solution for Taiwan Government owing to the increases in transport volume and the limited tourism budget.