Climate Change and Tourism - UNEP - Division of Technology ...

124 Climate Change and Tourism – Responding to Global Challenges
A common challenge faced by previous analyses of CO 2 emissions has been data limitations. An ideal
data set would include information on the origin and destination of tourists, the routing, transport mode
and operational factors, such as occupancy rates (load factors), as well as information on engine types.
No such systematic information exists for worldwide tourism, and the following analysis is thus based
on multiple data sets, including the set of tables and approximations of consistent worldwide tourism
volumes developed by UNWTO for this report (see Annex 1).
One procedure for measuring CO 2 emissions is to multiply average emissions per passenger kilometre
(pkm) with travel distances. CO 2 emissions per pkm vary substantially among different transport modes.
Table 11.2 provides emission factors for transport in the EU, showing that:
• coach and rail have the lowest factor, 0.022 kg CO2
/pkm and 0.027 kg CO /pkm, respectively; the
2
difference between coach and rail is mainly caused by occupancy rates (see Table 11.2); in terms
of per seat kilometre emissions, rail is much lower (0.016 kg/skm) than coach (0.020 kg/skm);
• in the mid-range, are emissions from cars (0.133 kg CO /pkm) and from flights of 1,000 or more
2
km (0.130 kg CO /pkm);
2
• flights of less than 500 km have the highest emission factors (0.206 kg CO /pkm), as take offs and
2
climb-outs consume disproportionately high amounts of fuel.
The following Sections provide a discussion of global tourism emissions from air and ground transport,
as well as estimates of the total transport emissions from international and domestic tourism.
Table 11.2 Emission factors for tourism transport modes in the EU context
Mode CO 2 factor
(kg/pkm)
UNWTO, 9 July 2008
Occupancy rate/load factor (%)
Air < 500 km 0.206 –
500-1,000 km 0.154 –
1,000-1,500 km 0.130 –
1,500-2,000 km 0.121 –
> 2,000 km 0.111 –
Air world average (a) 0.129 75
Rail 0.027 60
Car 0.133 50
Coach 0.022 90
(a) This value is calculated in Section 11.1.2.1.
Source: Peeters, P. et al. (2007b)
Box 24 CO 2 emissions from European Union tourism transport
While there is no comprehensive analysis of global emissions from tourism transport, a detailed
EU study 639, 640 has provided some insight into the importance of emissions from different tourism
transport modes and market segments. Several tourism data sets were combined to develop a
comprehensive origin-destination table for five transport modes and including international (i.e.,
intercontinental) and domestic tourism from and within the then 25 member states of the EU plus
Switzerland and Norway. Based on the number of trips and the average trip distances between
origin/destination for the various transport modes, total distances travelled as well as emissions of
CO 2 and other pollutants were calculated. In 2000, most trips were made by car, while air travel
represented the major share of passenger kilometres travelled as well as the largest source of CO 2
emissions (Figure 11.1). As a consequence, air transport, though accounting for 20% of all trips,