COP 17 World Tourism on the line in 7 days

Global warming will devastate tourism unless they find an answer

In seven days there will be another attempt to reconcile growth with carbon emissions. Rich and poor nations will square up to each other and try to come to some agreement about the amount each is allowed to grow their economies and emit the consequent greenhouse gases.

Although the UNWTO is there, tourism is pretty much a bystander in this fight, even though global tourism is very much on the line.

However sustainable tourism can be in a destination – and it can be very sustainable, increasing job opportunities, increasing social inclusion, stewarding the environment – all at nil, or minimal, carbon emissions – the tourists still have to get to the destinations to have any effect.

And there is the rub. Most authorities believe that over 70% of tourism-related emissions are caused by the transportation to the destination – in other words airlines.

So, let’s assume that eventually there will be some global agreement, and it’s a just and equitable one, it will have two fundamental challenges for tourism:

1. A just agreement will impact on developed countries growth, hit their economies, reduce the source market’s power to generate tourists. And this will be added to the current economic challenges. Therefore there will be fewer rich international tourists.

2. Airlines will come under even more pressure to reduce emissions, and, as this cannot yet be achieved by technological advances, then they must reduce carryings. In this case the EU-ETS and the UK APD are the tips of a very big iceberg indeed.

There are simply two obvious answers to these challenges:

1. Hope and pray that any agreement will be fudged and delayed until technology catches up.

2. Full steam ahead for a green tourism economy, which would increase land travel dramatically and decrease air travel. In this new tourism world, regional and domestic tourism would increase and international tourism would dramatically decrease – in other words an end to the international mass tourism 60-year boom.

The alternative:

Unless things change rapidly (let’s say 20 years?); many island holiday resorts will disappear, skiing will stop (except on glaciers), summer sun destinations will become winter sun ones, and delta destinations will disappear too.

These effects are just the frosting on the cake. Just imagine a world which is so hot that harvests fail, fresh water runs out and whole populations emigrate just to stay alive.

Our global security problems are now politically-driven – just imagine the upheavals on a tourism industry if they were starvation driven too.

Valere Tjolle
Valere is editor of the Sustainable Tourism Report Suite 2011 Get your copy at a special offer price: HERE