Revealed for COP 28: Global tourism’s first climate change stocktake report
The first Tourism and Climate Change Stocktake report has been released by the Tourism Panel on Climate Change (TPCC) concurrent with the UN COP 28 Climate Conference. [Download the Stocktake.]
Its 24 key findings aim to support policy makers and the tourism industry to accelerate planning and investment toward low carbon and climate resilient global tourism.
The report finds that many countries support tourism because of its integral role in contributing to economic development.
There is limited evidence that tourism growth has been decoupled from increases in greenhouse gas emissions. Tourism now contributes directly and indirectly about 8–10% of global emissions.
Professor Daniel Scott, University of Waterloo, Canada said: “In 2023, the world witnessed an extraordinary succession of climate records so that we no longer need to imagine the impacts of climate change on tourism. Transformational change to climate resilient tourism is our collective responsibility and compels decisive leadership by the tourism community. The future of global tourism remains ours to decide, for there can be no sustainable tourism if we fail on climate.”
Professor Susanne Becken, Griffith University, Australia said: “Travel and tourism is incredibly important, not only economically but socially as well. However, with our planet being in an acute state of crisis it has become essential to identify and promote those types of tourism that can continue to deliver genuine benefits, whilst retreating from ‘tourism fossils’ that are simply not compatible with a low carbon and climate resilient future.”
Professor Geoffrey Lipman, President of SUNx Malta said: “It’s time to move further and faster than the hollow promises made for three decades in the future. That future is already here in increasingly devastating global weather patterns. Tourism needs to respond to this now and to recent IPCC calls for GHG emissions to peak by 2025.”
