The recent floods in Spain are just the latest symptom of a planet in crisis. Images of floods surging through airports, in the same region where locals have been protesting against the impact of mass tourism on their lives, are a cruel symbol of the destruction that tourism can cause to our planet. But what if tourism could be support, rather than harm, to vulnerable communities as they face climate-related challenges? The Travel Foundation recently released a report exploring exactly this question, entitled ‘Climate Justice in Tourism: An Introductory Guide‘, with Stay Grounded’s Network Coordinator Daniela Subtil contributing to the report. Here is a summary of the report produced by Elisabeth Millara, a volunteer for Stay Grounded.

The tourism industry is both promoter of climate change and vulnerable to its consequences. Host communities are both economically dependent on tourism and threatened by its social and climatic impacts. Climate justice requires that the industry takes responsibility for and prioritises the needs of local communities whose ‘tourism destinations’ are their homes. Repurposing tourism toward climate justice, through centring the communities and ecosystems upon which travel experiences are based, will enable the industry to better position its investments and futureproof its relevance.

Tourism is responsible for significant greenhouse gas emissions, mainly through aviation

In 2019, travel was responsible for 8-11% of global greenhouse gas emissions (1), mainly through aviation (2). The longest of the long-haul flights, representing 2% of the total number of trips, are responsible for 19% of tourism’s global emissions. If left unchecked, such flights and their total emissions will quadruple by 2050 (3).

The privileged contribute disproportionately to emissions

In 2019, high-income countries accounted for nearly half of all travel and tourism emissions, and two-thirds of international flight and cruise emissions (4).
Tourism emissions are disproportionately caused by a small percentage of the global population that engages in regular international travel. Only 11% of the world’s population flew in 2018, and less than 4% flew outside of their country. Shockingly, 1% of the world’s population causes more than half the global climate emissions from aviation (5).

The unprivileged bear the brunt of climate change

The paradox of climate injustice is that the impacts from climate change are disproportionately felt by those who travel the least and cause the least emissions. Communities across the Global South are often those most severely impacted by climate change, particularly under-represented and vulnerable groups such as women, children, Indigenous communities, low-income/informal sector/precarious workers, and people living with disabilities and others.

The risks associated with climate change threaten the livelihoods and central assets of host communities, upon which tourism also depends. Pacific Island nations like Fiji or Tahiti, whose economies are highly dependent upon tourism, will be some of the first to become uninhabitable as sea levels rise due to climate change.

When tourism monopolises a community’s resources, it denies local people access to and benefit from natural and cultural resources that are central to their own identity and survival. Climate change can make this situation much worse. In communities where tourism has already driven up the price of food, housing, electricity and water, a climate-related disaster such as a hurricane, wildfire or flood can make basic necessities even more inaccessible for locals if resources are prioritised for tourists.

Tourism represents 10% of global GDP and a mainstay of local economies

The tourism industry supports the income of almost one in 10 people in the world and provides around 10% of global GDP.
On the bright side, tourism allows economic development for communities all over the world, particularly in rural and remote areas with limited economic opportunities. The downside being that the places which are most severely impacted by climate change and which have the fewest resources or capacity to adapt or build resilience are often heavily reliant on inbound tourism.

It’s important to recognise that tackling tourism’s destructive impact is not without challenges. . With aviation, efforts to mitigate carbon emissions through discouraging long-haul flights risks denying tourism’s benefits to those most reliant upon them. When it comes to adaptation, as tourism businesses increasingly seek to reduce the risks from climate change, they will disinvest from certain countries, businesses and tourism activities, leaving the local population deprived of their main source of income.

Climate change is a threat for tourism business itself

Climate change exposure and impacts are anticipated to be far reaching for tourism. Companies already incur significant costs associated with addressing climate disruption. High vulnerability often coincides both with regions where tourism contribution to GDP is high and those where tourism growth is expected to be the strongest. Current forms of tourism will not be viable at some destinations.

Achieving climate justice in tourism

Since 2020, there is growing awareness of climate emergency in the tourism business. Following the Glasgow Declaration for Climate Action in Tourism (6) in 2021, over 850 organisations, including national and regional governments, tourism companies, and local destination organisations and small and medium-sized enterprises, have already made the same shared commitment to deliver a Climate Action Plan for their organisation. Many individual plans include climate actions that could support climate justice, even if they are not explicitly described with this objective in mind.

In order to truly shift the industry towards climate justice, deeper reflection and engagement is required into various aspects of how tourism operates. The entire value chain must ensure that the opportunities and benefits that are created by tourism go down to the local communities both in terms of ownership and in terms of opportunity.

Inclusivity, collaboration, and community-focused engagement are important parts of delivering climate justice in tourism. This may involve atypical tourism stakeholders such as non-profits, community and environmental organisations, youth service sectors, residents, and others, whose diverse perspectives support a more sustainable approach. An “ethic of care” approach would look to invite all tourism and tourism-adjacent stakeholders to collaborate through a shared commitment to the holistic sustainability of destinations.

Once organisations develop strategies of meaningful inclusivity and collaboration, more systems-based and holistic approaches to tourism can emerge. Operating this way would entail considering the multiple social and environmental interactions that tourism has with communities and ecosystems and develop more symbiotic relationships with host communities and the natural world.

10 ideas for scaling collaborative action to promote climate justice

1: Understanding more about the risks that communities face based on continuing tourism operations in a changing climate is an important step to facilitate more targeted climate justice approaches.

2: A climate fund would support green transition, resilience-building and crisis response for the most vulnerable destination communities.

3: Companies could support pilot projects focused on key destinations and their critical climate-related issues.

4: Tourism companies could engage more with Destination Management Organisations and National Tourism Administrations as an interface for local suppliers, NGOs and other agencies, facilitating partnerships at this local level.

5: The travel and tourism sector is well-placed to provide emergency response in times of crisis. Businesses could work with humanitarian relief organisations and local leaders and stakeholders to build the capacity of their infrastructure and workforces for rapid crisis response.

6: Collaboration on shared supplier activities would help avoid duplication of burden on local suppliers and create opportunities for enhanced local supplier support – for instance with tools and resources for climate action.

7: A carbon budget for the remaining emissions relating to international travel and tourism could be created and fairly allocated to host destinations at a national level.

8: Fair regulation and incentives may incentivise investment in, and marketing of, sustainable products, providing that regulations do not negatively impact tourism businesses in destinations at greater risk of impacts from climate change.

9: A green taxonomy could direct investments towards projects most likely to provide a social and environmental ROI, based on a community’s own assessment of needs.

10: A ranking mechanism could identify where tourism is contributing to more resilient communities, and also where tourism is undermining community resilience by prioritising visitor needs.

References

(1) Scott, D., Hall, C.M., Rushton, B. & Gössling, S. (2023). A review of the IPCC Sixth Assessment and implications for tourism development and sectoral climate action. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, DOI: 10.1080/09669582.2023.2195597.

(2) (TPCC). Tourism Panel on Climate Change (2023). Tourism and Climate Change Stocktake 2023. [Eds. Becken, S. & Scott, D.]. https://tpcc.info/ p. 12

(3) Peeters, P. & Papp, B. (2023). Envisioning Tourism in 2030 and Beyond: The changing shape of tourism in a decarbonising world. The Travel Foundation. https://www.thetravelfoundation.org.uk/envision2030/ p. 32

-WWTC. (n.d.). “Travel and Tourism’s Global Footprint.” Retrieved 5 May from https://globaltravelfootprint.wttc.org

(4) Global Environmental Change ( 2020)

-Glasgow Declaration (oneplanetnetwork.org) ttps://www.oneplanetnetwork.org/sites/default/files/2022-02/GlasgowDeclaration_EN_0.pdf

This is a summary of The Travel Foundation’s recently released report ‘Climate Justice in Tourism: An Introductory Guide‘. The summary was produced by Stay Grounded volunteer Elisabeth Millara.