On aviation emissions & financial risk: Tourism Panel on Climate Change (TPCC) publishes first Horizon Papers
The Tourism Panel on Climate Change (TPCC) has published its first ‘Horizon Papers’; one on the topic of reducing aviation’s greenhouse gas emissions (mitigation), another on the financial resilience of tourism organisations affected by climate change (adaptation).
TPCC’s Horizon Papers are leading-edge think pieces to stimulate critical exchanges at the intersection of climate change and tourism. They are commissioned from recognised experts in the field and are peer-reviewed.
Download the Horizon Papers in full from TPCC.info/downloads along with the TPCC’s ‘Foundation Framework’ that its Executive Board presented at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP27) in Egypt, November 10.
The TPCC is an independent and impartial initiative designed to support tourism’s transition to net-zero emissions and climate-resilient tourism development. It was created by the Saudi Arabia-led Sustainable Tourism Global Center (STGC).
TPCC’s first two Horizon Papers are:
‘Sustainable Tourism’s Achilles’ Heel: Aviation Emissions’
Chris Lyle, Founder of Air Transport Economics, reviews recent major studies on the feasibility, contribution, and related policy frameworks of measures that seek to mitigate air transport’s greenhouse gas emissions.
His Horizon Paper addresses the collective limited capacity of those measures to achieve the Paris Agreement goals; considers “paths forward and ‘deep dives’” into critical aspects of aviation emissions mitigation; and lays out some key points of consideration for policymakers. The author notes that the game-changing driver will be new aircraft power sources, particularly sustainable aviation fuel (SAF).
Lyle concludes that new thinking is urgently required, suggesting that the tourism sector needs to “get more directly involved” in the decarbonisation of aviation lest the industry becomes “a distressed or even stranded asset”.
‘The Imperative for Advancing Climate Risk Assessment in Tourism’
Bijan Khazai and his colleagues at Risklayer GmbH review the G20’s Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD).
The authors note that increasing numbers of investors are asking tourism organisations about the implications of climate change on their long-term financial performance, and suggest that this will only intensify going forward.
Their Horizon Paper looks at mainstream climate risk assessment decision support tools in tourism (“largely ill-suited”) and proposes a financial risk disclosure tool that could be useful for the tourism sector in TCFD compliance.
Both Horizon Papers can be downloaded in full from TPCC.info/downloads along with TPCC’s ‘Foundation Framework’.
Read more here: https://goodtourismblog.com/2022/11/aviation-emissions-financial-risk-tourism-panel-on-climate-change-tpcc-horizon-papers/
