CO2 emissions associated with global tourism are growing at a rapid rate of 3.5% annually, more than double the growth rate of the global economy, and reached 5.2 gigatonnes of CO2 in 2019, equivalent to 8, 8% of total global greenhouse gas emissions.
These are some of the conclusions of a new study led by Ya-Yen Sun and his team and published this Tuesday in the magazine Nature Communications. Based on the analysis of data from 175 countries registered between 2009 and 2020, the authors show that tourism is one of the main contributors to global carbon emissions, largely because the increase in activity has not been offset by the slow improvements in technological efficiency.
“In 2013 the climate impact of tourism was 8%,” explains Sun to elDiario.es. “Our work adopted the same methodology with data between 2013-2019 and we found no indication that tourism emissions had stabilized. On the contrary, they continued to grow and reached 8.8% just before the Covid 19 pandemic.”
According to this data, each dollar earned in tourism generated 1.02 kg of global greenhouse gas emissions, approximately 4 times more than the service sector and 30% more than the global economy. From a sector perspective, the majority of net emissions were generated by air transport and the use of private vehicles by travelers. The work does not break down emissions from cruise ships separately, but a previous job About the three companies that represent 76% of global cruise revenues and transport 22.1 million passengers, it was estimated that they cause direct emissions of 18.3 Mt of CO2.
Millions of internal trips
The growth of the world’s population from 6.9 billion to 7.8 billion over the decade is a major factor behind the changes in tourism consumption, according to the result. As people travel more frequently, the study notes, the use of private internal combustion vehicles by tourists increases, mostly on domestic trips.
The work reveals the enormous inequality in contributions: the 20 countries with the highest emissions contribute three quarters of the total carbon footprint and the growth of domestic travel in three of these countries (the United States, China and India) is what contributes more to the absolute increase in emissions.
“Globally, the domestic travel market is significantly larger than the international travel market,” explains Sun. “The high volume of domestic travel in these three large countries, combined with strong growth, has contributed to the problem.” In this sense, the researcher calls for taking economic disparities into account when designing these global emissions reduction policies, since the main responsibility falls on a very small group of countries.
The pandemic experiment
The authors also note how the Covid 19 pandemic drastically reduced the carbon footprint of tourism: limitations on international travel and reductions in domestic tourism caused a decrease in global tourism emissions from 5.2 Gt in 2019 to 2. 2 Gt in a year. “The pandemic provides a live experiment of the importance of tourism as a driver of global emissions growth,” they write.
The experience of the pandemic shows that when tourism is restricted, emissions decrease substantially, and vice versa
Ya-Yen Sun
— Researcher at the University of Queensland and lead author of the study
“This shows that when tourism is restricted, emissions decrease substantially,” says Sun. “It also means that, as tourism returns to pre-Covid levels (probably this very 2024, according to the fountain used) and continues to grow in the coming years, it is likely that its emissions will continue to increase.”
The researchers remember the existence of the Glasgow Declarationled by the World Tourism Organization, to mobilize tourism stakeholders to support global goals of halving emissions by 2030 and reaching zero emissions by 2050. However, they believe these results show that have not been sufficient to offset the rapid growth in tourism demand and underline the need to adopt urgent measures.
If the same growth rate is maintained in future years, Sun warns, tourism emissions are expected to double every 20 years. “Travel is an integral part of our society and people have a strong desire to travel,” says the researcher. “We do not believe that this social phenomenon will change in the short term and, therefore, we anticipate solid growth in travel demand in the coming years,” he concludes. “In a business-as-usual scenario, this suggests that tourism emissions are likely to grow at a similar rate (3.5% annually) between 2024 and 2030.”
It takes a huge effort
Maria Angeles Cadarsoprofessor at the University of Castilla-La Mancha (UCLM) and specialist in emissions associated with tourism, considers that this is an excellent work with some conclusions that are not good at all. “The worrying part is that tourism is lagging behind when it comes to incorporating energy efficiency and this is causing emissions to grow up to double that of other sectors,” he points out. “Because it is intensive in transportation, which is one of the biggest causes of emissions, it presents a worse situation, which is worsened in countries like China and India, which have improved their standard of living but continue to have less clean means of transportation” .
Tourism is lagging behind in energy efficiency and its emissions are growing up to double that of other sectors
Maria Angeles Cadarso
— Professor at the University of Castilla-La Mancha (UCLM)
In Cadarso’s opinion, the rise from 8 to 8.8% in less than a decade is very relevant because we have to go in the opposite direction if we want to meet the objectives of the Glasgow Declaration. She and her team studied the situation of tourism in Spain after the pandemic stopped and not only did they see a rebound effect in demand, but they confirmed that we are very far from the path marked in the agreement. “We were trying to see what it would take to bring it back to levels consistent with the Glasgow declaration and we saw that even reducing air transportation from other countries was not enough,” explains the expert.
Cadarso believes that the data shows that the effort that needs to be made is truly great. “As the new study indicates, at least an annual drop in emissions of 10% is needed to be on track,” he emphasizes. In his opinion, this should lead the authorities to rethink new measures to stop this explosion of tourism, which not only has environmental effects, but seriously disrupts the internal housing markets and other sectors.
“All this without forgetting that at the same time it has a positive economic effect in areas where there are no other sources of income,” admits Cadarso. “But the solution is to ensure that the positive effects outweigh the negative ones and not the other way around, which is what is happening so far.”
#explosion #global #tourism #responsible #CO2 #emissions #continues #rise #brakes
