The gaping hole in the sustainable tourism debate

Photo: http://www.climateactionprogramme.org/

80% of tourism-related emissions are out of control – eventually there will be a Donald Trump threatening to build walls around tourism destinations

The gaping hole in the sustainable tourism debate goes back to the Chicago Convention of 1944, which was ratified on 4 April 1947 – the same date that ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) came into being. ICAO – is a specialized UN agency that has as members 190 of the world’s UN members.

ICAO is distinct from IATA, the world airline trade organization, but both are headquartered in Montreal.

The Chicago Convention basically provides a tax-free environment for airlines – they don’t have to pay tax on fuel or on spare parts. Whilst this has been queried again and again (for instance the loss of taxes in the UK alone is estimated at £10billion (€12.6 billion, $14 billion) annually – it has remained inviolate. So airlines pay no taxes (except of course on profits – when they make them!). Why… because airlines’ international status makes them exempt from individual countries’ tax regimes.

The same ‘Internationalism’ logic has been applied by ICAO to penalties on emissions caps- in effect placing airlines totally out of any form of emissions control.

In 2014, the only workable emissions control scheme – the European Union Emission Trading Scheme (EUETS) sought to establish emissions control over international airlines flights to and from Europe.

The planned inclusion of international aviation was called an ‘illegal tax’ by countries including the USA and China, who cited the Chicago Convention and its logic.

China threatened to cancel orders for European Airbuses; the US went so far as to make it illegal for any airline to join the EUETS;  – indeed all hell broke loose.

And, naturally, the EU capitulated, handing over control to the ICAO who ‘promised’ to organize emissions control on a global basis. This year they said – 2016.

In terms of tourism-related emissions this is by far the biggest issue. It is estimated that tourism contributes about 5%-8% of global emissions, but in fact air transportation represents a mammoth 80% of this total 5%-8%.

Not only that but, as tourism is also projected to increase dramatically over the next decades – so air travel-related emissions will increase dramatically too.

Plus… the self same argument of ‘Internationalism’ has been used relating to cruises (they are international too) and all other shipping.

So, whatever gains are made by the COP process, the UN Convention on Climate Change, the Kyoto Agreement, the Morocco Process, the good and the great etc etc – the airlines (and the shipping companies) are laughing all the way to the bank because they have a neat get out clause. NO TAX – because they fly in international skies and their flights operate as international citizens beholding to no national regime – taxable or otherwise.

The argument on behalf of the airlines and their supporters is that, without airlines, little or no international development would take place sustainable or otherwise. And airlines need to be free to operate globally.

Certainly there would be very little tourism to areas highly on tourism-dependent think the Caribbean islands, the Maldives or the Seychelles, think places without good land communications.

And all this is true – other ways would have to be found if the developed world can be bothered to assist the less developed world, and tourism may not be the only way.

But think of the consequences of a line of thinking, where airlines operate totally without effective emissions controls…

Last year global emissions were about 40billion tonnes; the target is to reduce that to about 20billion tonnes by 2050 to avoid catastrophic climate change effects.

Given the tourism figure of 5% share of global emissions (8% if you judge the effect of tourism-related emissions) and the airline contribution of 80% of this. These figures would mean that airlines are currently responsible for 1.6 billion tonnes of emissions (or 2.56 billion tonnes if you judge the tourism effect). This, in itself, is a challenging figure.

But if tourism increases as forecast by 2050 (a staggering 5 fold increase) and airlines make use of their ‘Get out of Jail card Chicago Convention’  backed up by the brute force of powerful countries (including USA and China) then whilst global emissions reduce to 20 billion tonnes, airline emissions will increase to 8 billion tonnes – representing nearly half of all emissions – or 12.8 billion tonnes if you include the multiplied effects of tourism emissions – well over half of all global emissions.

OK, the airlines argue that they are making great strides in technology to reduce their emissions (and their fuel bills); they are testing forms of biofuel with less emissions; they are changing their flight patterns to be less emission-intensive. See also: Paper about airline innovations Above all the airlines argue the ‘Greater Good’ principle that the world is better off with them and their emissions than with them in a radically-reduced form – or not at all.

But at some time along the graph, when airline emissions are the biggest outstanding issue the chickens will come home to roost. Maybe then the airliners will come home to roost too.

But in the meantime a ‘Business as Usual’ scenario means that we are all missing many opportunities of changing tourism for the better. We need to ask some serious questions now, like…

• How beneficial is low-profit, low-value, high intensity tourism to destination communities, visitors and the world community?
• What can be done to reduce the proportion of emissions relating to air – the 80% – to the whole package? Longer stays, fewer journeys, fewer tourists?
• Will the coming wave of virtual reality make a difference to the perceived need/right to take a real holiday?
• Can destinations realize that numbers of tourists do not represent any kind of sustainable solution to their economic problems? Could they look for better visitor economies?

And what may happen and what are the challenges and opportunities?

Eventually airlines, the travelling public and politicians will get it.

In the same way that the banks (and other global businesses like Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Google) are currently being held up to account so will the airlines, the cruise companies (and other global travel businesses such as Tripadvisor, Priceline, Booking.com and Airbnb.)

Clearly the challenge is, that in a global economy, we appear only to be able to legislate nationally.

This always puts organizations who operate globally at an advantage over those who operate locally. Often it is as simple as the realization that global organizations have a choice as to where they operate and local organizations simply don’t.

So airlines, tour operators, OTAs and cruise companies are always at a critical advantage over destinations.

And as far as emissions-controls are concerned, destinations have to accede to national legislation agreed as a result of global negotiations over climate change, whereas the global businesses don’t – yet.

To rectify this imbalance, individual destinations and destination tourism providers really have to take control over their own tourism. They are helping to reduce emissions whereas the organizations that bring their tourists aren’t. This is just one aspect of tourism as an extractive industry.

Eventually there will be a Donald Trump threatening to build walls around tourism destinations, value the assets appropriately and charge entrance fees to only the right sorts of visitors. He may have a point.

Although for the foreseeable future airlines and these other global businesses will exist in this tax-free, control-free environment, eventually their customers will react. Possibly violently – and at that stage things will change.

In the meantime it would be sensible to realize that destinations actually are the owners of the tourism industry, they may currently be sleeping but when they realize that their tourism inflows may be oil wells lacking management – they will wake up.

So tourism businesses of all sorts would be well advised to understand destinations better. The MASSIVE opportunity is to truly understand destinations, their needs and their issues so that beneficial co-operations can be formed.

The question for destinations is how this innovation can be destination-driven rather than destination-drained.

This will be the subject for SustainableTourism2016

Valere Tjolle

@ValereTjolle [email protected]