Ironically, many countries that are vulnerable to climate change are considered tourism hotspots. During COP25, Patricia Espinosa (UNFCCC Executive Secretary) said that climate change is happening in destinations that are dependent on tourism, leading to losses of jobs, homes, lives, and hope. Areas that are close to the ocean as well as mountainous areas and polar regions are especially affected by the impacts of climate change in the form of floods, droughts, heatwaves or hurricanes. While the tourism industry in the Arctic may benefit from the global warming induced reductions in sea ice, tourism destinations in the tropics are projected to experience a decrease in visitor numbers due to more extreme temperatures and increases in the frequency and intensity of storms. In Europe, summer tourism will be redistributed away from Southern Europe to higher latitudes, and warmer regions will note a temporal tourism shift from high to shoulder seasons. Because of its strong links to other sectors, the tourism industry will be among the first to suffer when disasters occur; venues will become shelters and tourism will come to a standstill in the case of an emergency. Despite that, the travel and tourism industry remains one of the most polluting industries regarding carbon emissions, hence perpetuating global warming and natural disasters.
Let’s break it down. The tourism sector contributes to around 8% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as a result of: aviation (40%), transportation (30%) and the consumption of goods and services (30%) including food and accommodation (Lenzen et al., 2018). Espinosa (UNFCCC) claimed that 8% is huge and not sustainable. 8% makes the sector a bigger polluter than the construction sector. Tourism-related transport CO2 emissions are predicted to increase to almost 2 million tonnes by 2030, a 25% rise from 2016 to 2030, while during the same period international and domestic arrivals are projected to increase from 20 billion to 37 billion (UNWTO).
