Under the low-carbon background, 37 ports of countries along the South China Sea with capacity ranking in the world’s top 100 container ports are selected as the research object to establish a shipping network, construct a directed dichotomous shipping network, and divide the port tiers after finding the kernel number by using kernel analysis method, respectively, to explore the relationship between tiers and the relationship between ports at the higher level, and then make clear the direction of the improvement for the reduction of carbon emissions. The results show that: the routes sent between container ports in countries along the […]