Earth Day travel and tourism summit call

Lipman calls for a travel and tourism follow-up to Davos for Earth Day 2015

Talking to Valere Tjolle, on Earth Day 2014 from Abu Dhabi, on his way to tourism meetings in Asia, Professor Geoffrey Lipman made another call for a follow up to the 2^nd International Conference on Climate Change and Tourism held in Davos in 2007.

Said Lipman  "A month ago, I sought to make a case for a new Travel and Tourism Climate Summit – as a follow up to the 2007 UNWTO, WMO, UNEP Davos Summit." See: http://www.travelmole.com/news_feature.php?news_id=2010703 and http://www.travelmole.com/news_feature.php?news_id=2010510

"The idea being that just as the Davos Summit had laid out an industry baseline exchange and a ‘go forward plan’ for the 2009 landmark Copenhagen UNFCCC Summit; a second meeting would do the same for the 2015 UN Sustainable  Development and Climate Summits. I also suggested that this time there should be some serious targets, disclosure and funding to move from aspiration to delivery."

"Earthday seems the right time to renew the call. How about an Earthday Climate Summit in 2015?"

He continued "Of course there are lots of sectoral and regional meetings in the works – and that is a good thing. The Air Transport Action Group in Geneva this month is one good example and the UNWTO Asia Pacific Regional Meeting in the Philippines is another. There will be more as the 2015 UN Events get closer and the UN publicity gets hotter. And no doubt there will be so called aligned advocacy positions forged and promoted."

Talking about the Davos model, and the fundamental effect it had on refocusing the travel and tourism industry, operators, sectors and NGO’s – AND in delivering workable, useful documentation, he said"

"There were some vital elements of the Davos meeting that set it apart. It was inclusionary, thanks to the diverse interests of the organizing bodies and the engagement of the participants. The research base on industry carbon outputs (the first time it had ever been compiled) became the standard for most of the subsequent analyses and position papers. It was not a lobbying effort, but a genuine attempt to research the issue, openly analyse the data, debate in a true open fashion and build an implementable consensus framework."

And he pointed out that much of the seminal Davos work was in danger of being lost due to inaction:

"It was successful in laying out a coherent ‘Davos Declaration Framework for Action’ But then the coherence stopped and since then there have been useful monitoring initiatives by UNWTO and UNEP, but little in the way of specific implementation."

And that, although we are in a rapidly-changing situation, we have an even more powerful opportunity to jointly engage with this critical issue:

"But we live in an era when change is the norm – markets (the BRICS for example), technology (Biofuel and Solar prospects for example), measuring techniques (Big Data, Satellite Oversight and Mobile Monitoring for example) and also societal visions (Gross National Happiness for example). And we are moving into an era when carbon targets and environmental impact assessments will be as important as growth predictions. And when financial rewards and penalties will be increasingly tied t green growth performance."

"So a second Davos style Climate Summit would be incredibly timely.  Wouldn’t it be great if we could plan such an event  for Earthday 2015"

Valere Tjolle

Special Earth Day £25/€30/$42 Green Tourism Offer HERE