Analysis of Decoupling Effects and Influence Factors in Transportation: Evidence from Guangdong Province, China

In recent years, global environmental issues have become increasingly prominent. The transportation industry, as the fundamental sector of national economic development, is also characterized by high energy consumption and carbon emissions. Therefore, it is imperative to conduct research on the carbon emission problem within this industry. In light of the Tapio decoupling model, an analysis of the correlation between traffic carbon emissions and economic development in Guangdong province during 1999–2019 was carried out. With the aim of encouraging Guangdong province’s low-carbon transportation development, the factors affecting the transportation industry are analyzed utilizing the generalized Divisia index model (GDIM). We also introduced passenger and freight turnover as an influencing factor for analysis. The findings indicate that (1) Guangdong province’s traffic carbon emissions increased from 1999 to 2019; (2) the traffic carbon emissions’ decoupling effect is mainly “weakly decoupled”, and the overall decoupling effect is not strong in Guangdong province; (3) among the traffic carbon emissions’ factors, the effects of the production value of traffic and the turnover volume are at the forefront, and the effect of turnover volume has gradually exceeded the production value of traffic in recent years. The suppression of the intensity of carbon emissions is relatively large, while the suppression of the intensity of energy consumption and transport is relatively weak. Based on this, strategies were proposed to promote a cleaner energy mix, improve energy use efficiency, create energy savings, develop green technologies, and foster the restructuring of transportation.