Climate Change and Tourism: Call for action by civil society groups

Climate Justice and Tourism

People are at the heart of this call to action. Local communities in developing societies who have contributed least to global warming will be among the first to suffer its devastating consequences. Some are already experiencing them.

Climate change illustrates the growing urgency for a paradigm shift in the tourism industry, a sprawling industry ever in search of new destinations, including some to replace those threatened or disappearing due to global warming! In order to meet the challenge of ensuring that global warming remains below the dangerous threshold of 2 degrees Centigrade, every nation, every industry sector and every human being is called to take on a fair share of the mitigation burden. This call is directed to the tourism industry too.

Greenhouse gas emissions – contributions from tourism

The global tourism industry is a significant contributor to climate change. However, it should be noted that just 2 % of the world’s population actively takes part in air passenger transport1, contributing to tourism’s share of global warming which is up to 12.5 % (if non-CO2 effects are taken into account)2. Aviation alone contributes 4.9 %3 of this. Alarmingly, it is forecast that carbon emissions from tourism will grow by 162% in the period 2005-20354. This is only to be expected as massive expansion of airports and increase in low-cost carriers pave the way for such growth in emissions. Moreover, the tourism industry is notorious for high per capita consumption of water, poor energy efficiency, waste management issues, which leads to serious negative environmental and social impacts.

The kind of issues the world community will face arising from the effects of climate change and its link to tourism is provided by the Maldives in Asia. It is now well accepted that the sea level rise due to global warming threatens to fully submerge the islands in the coming years, a point dramatically made recently by the Maldivian government holding its Cabinet meeting underwater! What will be the fate of the Maldivian citizens who will be forced to become refugees from climate change when their home is submerged, as is plausible if global warming continues apace? And yet tourists, whose emissions are contributing to such a situation, are still encouraged to go to the Maldives, perhaps to enjoy a last ‘before it is too late’ experience. The Pacific is another region where the islands are under threat from global warming.

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