Researchers from Australia have been studying the supply chain of tourism and have concluded that the carbon footprint of the industry is almost four times larger than originally thought. The study included transportation, accommodation, souvenirs, clothing, cosmetics, meals and drinks.
In total, the global tourism industry accounts for about 8% of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions. The findings were published in a dissertation on Nature Climate Change. Global tourism is a trillion-dollar industry, so the research process was painstaking.
Process of determining tourism’s carbon footprint
The teams set out to determine the true emissions produced by tourism. Millions of supply chains and commodities involved in the tourism sector were analysed. The researchers looked at international trade databases and tracked what goods and services were consumed by tourists in 160 countries from 2009 to 2013.
In total during that four-year period, tourism-related carbon emissions increased by 15%. Most of this rise is attributed to transport, shopping and food. Humans’ growing desire for travel will result is the emissions almost doubling by 2025 if things are left unchanged.
Who can fix the rising carbon emissions?
There are essentially two ways to assign accountability in the tourism industry – residence-based and destination-based accountability. The first way holds the country from where residents come from responsible for tourism emissions and the second way assigns responsibility to the destination country.
This simplistic view basically questions whether tourists or destination countries should be responsible for reducing carbon emissions. If accountability is assigned to tourists, then the countries that have the largest amount of travelling citizens should find a way to reduce the impact of their travel.
If responsibility falls of the destination countries, then they need to work to improve accommodation, logistics, local transport and technology to reduce their carbon footprint. Both of these views are obviously more complicated and have far more complex nuances.
Problems with these viewpoints
With these simplistic viewpoints in action, the United States is responsible for the majority of tourism-related emissions under both. They have the largest travelling population but also attract the most tourists every year. The next most impactful countries ar China, Germany and India.
However, these viewpoints don’t consider the per capita tourism statistics – what percentage of the total population are travelling abroad, rather than just the number of people going overseas.
If you look at the per capita tourism-based carbon emissions, small island destinations have the largest footprints. The Maldives moves to the top of the list as 95% of the island’s emissions come from the tourism sector and international visitors.
Working together for change
The ability for small island nations to overhaul their tourism industries is not as feasible as, say, the United States or China. They don’t have the capital or the resources to pour into expensive technology and new eco-friendly solutions. They can only work on utilising more renewable energy at hotels, recreational hotspots and transport hubs.
This is where there these two opposing viewpoints fail to rectify the rising carbon emissions of tourism. Instead, all countries should take the initiative and start researching solutions to reduce carbon emissions from their own tourist attractions and travelling citizens.
Governments should implement policies and regulations that curb carbon emissions and incentivise eco-friendly operations. Every individual can make a difference too, by trying to offset their own emissions where possible and supporting those hotels and tourism companies that run sustainable programmes and operations.
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