Fly and fry tourism – is anyone worried about this existential problem?

Yet another tourism climate change report highlights the enormous dangers we face.

Again and again we have highlighted stories about great destinations walking up to the plate and taking responsibility for their own emissions – see this week’s Top100 Sustainable Destinations. But what about the real culprits – airlines and cruise companies fouling up our seas and our skies and our destinations? What are they doing?

The latest report prepared for the European Tourism Commission comes just 10 years after the UNWTO/UNEP/WMO report and re-affirms the danger the world of tourism (and the rest of the world) is facing:

"Carbon dioxide levels are increasing faster than they have in hundreds of thousands of years. It’s explosive compared to natural processes" Said Pieter Tans, lead scientist of NOAA’s Global Greenhouse Gas Reference Network.

The UNHCR estimates that up to a billion climate refugees will be wandering the world within the next 50 years – Climate change causes more refugees than an armed conflict  UNHCR:

Soon, rising sea levels will destroy seaside destinations and increased temperature will destroy winter sports destinations

Storms and unpredictable weather patterns are already happening, and biodiversity is being eroded year by year

Says the latest  report from climate change scientists for the European Travel Commission:

 "If 1.5 or 2.0 degrees of climate change does eventuate, then the very product we offer as a travel industry is going to come under threat. As various other industries really start to put very solid plans in place to reduce carbon emissions, it is increasingly obvious that our industry is not doing anything in a collective sense."

"Like the Internet revolution, decarbonisation represents the next major transformation of the tourism system. The challenge is formidable and the stakes are nothing less than the future sustainability and prosperity of the tourism economy in many parts of Europe and the world. As the world’s largest international tourism market and global leaders in combating climate change, Europe must boldly act to lead tourism into the decarbonised economy of the mid-21st century."

The problem is simple – currently total tourism emissions represent some 5% of global emissions but tourism is growing dramatically as are its emissions. 80% of this tourism-related warming is caused by air travel. Destinations and responsible tour operators such as TUI are playing their part, but airlines keep kicking this horrible poisonous weapons grade ball into touch.

Flying point to point in Europe is covered by the European Union Emissions Trading System (EUETS) – airline emissions are capped. Globally the EUETS is all there is in airline climate management..

When this well-created scheme was to be expanded to include flights VIA Europe,  the airlines, the plane makers, China and even the USA congress all kicked up merry hell.

So the EU backed down and the hideous massacre ball was kicked off to the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), who’s history is of giving airlines sweetheart deals (think the Chicago Convention and tax-free fuel and spare parts). Still airlines buy their fuel and spare parts tax-free as a result of the 1944 Chicago Convention and ruthless airline lobbying since. It is reported that the airlines get a yearly hand-out of €60 billion per annum or a per passenger subsidy of about €95 for a return flight from Europe to USA. The airlines were of course backed by rich governments as they always are.

Emissions control for international flights got a few free years of no control so the ICAO could get together its ‘global emissions control plan’ which it had promised for 2016.

What did the 2016 plan say? Hailed by the ICAO as a ‘historic agreement’ the plan (CORSIA) is a joke – it’s having a laugh on us – that is the world’s population. In effect it defers real  firm action until 2035 by when airline emissions will at least have doubled. If it isn’t shouted down, the airlines will have escaped responsibility for their emissions by kicking this disgusting ball into touch for a mammoth 20 years.

10 years of reports all indicating the same problem and the same imminent disasters and the airlines are still avoiding responsibility for their 80% of tourism warming.

More info:

http://www.travelmole.com/news_feature.php?news_id=2030757

http://www.travelmole.com/news_feature.php?news_id=2024726

Valere Tjolle

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