Does tourism development and renewable energy consumption drive high quality economic development?

In the context of Cop26, the study explores renewable energy consumption and tourism development impact on high-quality economic development (HQED). The study take 30 regions of China from 2007 to 2020, construct a spatial Durbin model to analyze the quantitative relationship between three big regions (eastern, central, western), and verify HQED's spatial effect and renewable energy consumption mediating effect. Conclusions as below: (1) Renewable energy can promote HQED. Renewable energy mainly promotes HQED through the mechanism of reducing carbon emissions, but the elasticity coefficient is small, indicating that renewable energy consumption has little effect on HQED, and also no spatial spillover effect. (2) The development of tourism inhibits the HQED. The related industries of tourism all need to use energy, its direct or indirect CO2 emissions and the impact on climate change are not conducive to HQED. Tourism development has a significant negative spatial effect on HQED. (3) Tourism development and renewable energy interaction term can inhibit HQED; means the combination of the two may not improve HQED. The carbon emissions caused by the energy consumption of the tourism industry has a significant spatial spillover effect. (4) Renewable energy consumption has partial mediating role in tourism development promoting HQED process.