• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
Celebrating our 1,000th edition. The climate news you need
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  FEATURED
BREAKING: UN Nature Summit, the ‘Paris Conference for Biodiversity’, Moves to Montreal in December June 19, 2022
‘LET’S SUE BIG OIL’: Legal Team Launches Class Action Campaign for B.C. Municipalities June 17, 2022
‘It Could Have Been Any of Us’, Colleague Says, After Brazil Confirms Murders of Bruno Pereira, Dom Phillips June 17, 2022
Infrastructure Gap a ‘Life and Death’ Matter as Northern Canada Warms June 17, 2022
Ban Fossil Fuel Ads Like Tobacco Promos, Doctors Urge Ottawa June 10, 2022
Next
Prev
Home Demand & Distribution Air & Marine

New Study Places Tourism’s Carbon Impact Three Times Higher Than Previously Believed

May 11, 2018
Reading time: 4 minutes

PR180.2/Wikimedia Commons

PR180.2/Wikimedia Commons

 

The US$7-trillion global tourism industry is now believed to account for 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions, three times the impact that was previously attributed to the sector, and enough to undermine the gains in the Paris climate change agreement, according to a new study in the journal Nature Climate Change.

“At least 15% of global tourism-related emissions are currently under no binding reduction target, as emissions of international aviation and bunker shipping are excluded from the Paris agreement,” the study states. “In addition, the U.S., the most significant source of tourism emissions, does not support the agreement.” (The shipping industry has since committed to a 50% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.)

“The new assessment is bigger because it includes emissions from travel, plus the full life cycle of carbon in tourists’ food, hotels, and shopping,” the BBC notes. “Driving the increase are visitors from affluent countries who travel to other wealthy destinations.”

“It definitely is eye-opening,” said lead author Dr. Arunima Malik of the University of Sydney. “We looked at really detailed information about tourism expenditure, including consumables such as food from eating out and souvenirs. We looked at the trade between different countries, and also at greenhouse gas emissions data, to come up with a comprehensive figure for the global carbon footprint for tourism.”

The analysis comes at a time when global tourism is growing fast. “Fueled by falling air travel prices and a growing global middle class, the number of international holiday-makers is currently growing at a rate of 3-5% per year,” Carbon Brief states.

Based on data spanning 160 countries, the researchers “found that the most important element was relatively well-off people from affluent countries travelling to other well to do destinations,” the BBC states, with much of the travel taking place inside national borders. “The report underlines the fact that when people earn more than $40,000 per annum, their carbon footprint from tourism increase 13% for every 10% rise in income,” and continues growing in step with incomes.

The study arrived at net carbon footprints for tourists from different countries by calculating the differences between their residence and destination emissions, Carbon Brief explains. That analysis led the researchers to define tourists from Canada, Switzerland, The Netherlands, and Denmark as “net travelers”, with higher carbon footprints in other countries than visitors in their own. Tourists from countries like Maldives, Cyprus, Mauritius, and Seychelles were identified as “net hosts”, meaning that their countries “shoulder much higher footprints from their visitors than they exert elsewhere”. The study said some small island states end up with the highest per capita carbon footprints, with tourism accounting for up to 80% of their annual emissions.

“If you have visitors from high-income countries then they typically spend heavily on air travel, on shopping and hospitality where they go to,” Malik told the BBC. “If the travelers are from low-income countries, they spend more on public transport and unprocessed food. The spending patterns are different for the different economies they come from.”

The study also suggested that the good intentions behind ecotourism aren’t enough to offset its emissions impact. “One main problem with ecotourism is that it cannot help to address emissions associated with long-haul travel, which is a key factor to the overall trip carbon footprint,” said co-author Dr. Ya-Yen Sun, a senior lecturer in tourism at the University of Queensland. “For example, a UK visitor flying all the way to Indonesia to engage with ecotourism will produce more emissions than locals with regular domestic travel.”

So “one key step to low-carbon travel is to fly less, choose destinations that are close to home, and pay to offset carbon emissions.”

On the Treehugger blog, Toronto architect Lloyd Alter takes issue with the analysis, arguing that the research “is not as much about the carbon footprint of travel as it is the carbon footprint of living, with some transportation thrown in.”

The study “looks at the entire picture of tourism, including what people do when they get to where they are going,” Alter writes. “They look at the carbon footprint of what happens when you get off the plane: getting around, staying at a hotel, buying food in restaurants and shopping. They look at the supply chains getting all this stuff to where the tourist is visiting.” But that introduces a degree of confusion since, “as people get richer, their carbon footprint increases whether they are traveling or not.”

In the study, the authors explain that they purposely focused on tourists’ carbon footprints in the countries they visit, rather than the “additionality” compared to their impact if they had stayed at home, partly because they wanted to understand the implications for “international embodied carbon transfers”.

World Travel and Tourism Council Research Director Rochelle Turner said a “growing number” of hotels, airports, and tourist operators are shifting to carbon-neutral operations, but cited the recent water crisis in Cape Town as the kind of event that can boost travelers’ awareness.

“There is a real need for people to recognize what their impact is in a destination, and how much water, waste, and energy you should be using compared to the local population,” she said. “All of this will empower tourists to make better decisions, and [it’s] only through those better decisions that we’ll be able to tackle the issue of climate change.”



in Air & Marine, Canada, Carbon Levels & Measurement, China, Small Island States, Supply Chains & Consumption, UK & Europe, United States, Water

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

Jason Woodhead/Flickr
Pipelines / Rail Transport

Trans Mountain Pipeline On Track to Lose $600 Million, Parliamentary Budget Officer Finds

June 24, 2022
288
Ben_Kerckx/Pixabay
Petrochemicals & Plastics

Plastics Cited as ‘Fossil Industry’s Plan B’ as Guilbeault Announces Partial Ban

June 24, 2022
171
Erik Whalen/wikimedia commons
Severe Storms & Flooding

Yellowstone Park Reopens, But Flood Recovery Could Take Years, Cost Billions

June 24, 2022
60

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

Jason Woodhead/Flickr

Trans Mountain Pipeline On Track to Lose $600 Million, Parliamentary Budget Officer Finds

June 24, 2022
288
Ben_Kerckx/Pixabay

Plastics Cited as ‘Fossil Industry’s Plan B’ as Guilbeault Announces Partial Ban

June 24, 2022
171
zephylwer0/pixabay

North American Steel, Aluminium Giants Lumber Toward Green Transition

June 24, 2022
147
Nemaska Lithium/Facebook

Critical Minerals, Hydrogen Lead Ottawa’s Low-Carbon Industry Strategy

June 24, 2022
74
/PxFul

Canadian Farmers Offer Ottawa a Roadmap to Cut Agriculture Emissions

June 24, 2022
83
Bruce Reeve/Flickr

Opinion: Ontario’s New ‘Carbon Tax’ Looks Like the One Doug Ford Fought

June 7, 2022
1.5k

Recent Posts

Erik Whalen/wikimedia commons

Yellowstone Park Reopens, But Flood Recovery Could Take Years, Cost Billions

June 24, 2022
60
TAFE SA TONSLEY/Flickr

Clean Energy Investment to Exceed $1.4T This Year, Still Falls Short of Climate Goals: IEA

June 24, 2022
80
Cjp24/Wikimedia Commons

UK Green Shift Won’t Repeat Job Destruction of Deindustrialization, Report Finds

June 24, 2022
29
Pavlofox/Pixabay

Millions Face Famine as Climate Disasters, Ukraine War Slash Food Supplies

June 24, 2022
38
Chris Lim/Wikimedia Commons

China Has 9 Times the Wind, Solar Potential It Needs for Carbon Neutrality

June 24, 2022
54
willenhallwench / Pixabay

PG&E Risks Greenwashing with Definition of ‘Scope 4’ Emissions

June 24, 2022
44
Next Post
MENA/Flickr

Automakers ‘Walk a Tightrope’ as Trump Rolls Back Tailpipe Emission Rules

The Energy Mix

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Navigate Site

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Follow Us

No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}