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

Chapter 12
UNWTO, 9 July 2008
Mitigation Policies and Measures
Climate change mitigation relates to technological, economic and social changes, as well as substitutions
that lead to emission reductions. Mitigation poses a challenge when significant reductions in emissions
cannot be achieved by technological restructuring alone, but also requires behavioural and structural
changes. Tourism-related emissions are growing rapidly, but mitigation policies need to address a number
of dimensions, such as the need to stabilize the global climate versus people’s desire to rest, recover and
explore; or the need to reduce long-haul emissions versus tourism’s role in development and poverty
alleviation. Climate change mitigation policies within tourism have to find a balance between such
potentially conflicting objectives. Clearly, decisions on climate change and tourism have implications
for local, national and global, as well as inter-generational equity and all these aspects need to be taken
into account to arrive at an effective policy mix.
Emission reductions should thus ideally combine various instruments, such as voluntary-, economic-,
and regulatory ones. Instruments are more effective when targeted at different stakeholder groups,
including tourists, tour operators, accommodation managers, airlines, manufacturers of cars and
aircraft, as well as destination managers. Instruments could also be applied with different emphasis in
different countries, so as not to jeopardize the development and poverty reduction opportunity offered
by tourism to developing countries.
It is clear that for those actors being pro-active in addressing climate change, mitigation offers a range
of business opportunities. Given current societal trends, it seems that there will be new markets for
environmentally oriented tourists and opportunities to develop new low-carbon tourism products.
Four major mitigation strategies for addressing GHG emissions from tourism can be distinguished: 667
• Reducing energy use (i.e., energy conservation): this can for example be achieved by changing
transport behaviour (e.g., more use of public transport, shift to rail and coach instead of car and
aircraft, choosing less distant destinations), as well as changing management practices (e.g.,
videoconferencing for business tourism).
• Improving energy efficiency: this refers to the use of new and innovative technology to decrease
energy demand (i.e., carrying out the same operation with a lower energy input).
• Increasing the use of renewable or carbon neutral energy: substituting fossil fuels with energy
sources that are not finite and cause lower emissions, such as biomass, hydro-, wind-, and solar
energy.
• Sequestering CO2
through carbon sinks: CO can be stored in biomass (e.g., through afforestation
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and deforestation), in aquifers or oceans, and in geological sinks (e.g., depleted gas fields).
Indirectly this option can have relevance to the tourism sector, considering that most developing
countries and SIDS that rely on air transport for their tourism-driven economies are biodiversity
rich areas with important biomass CO storage function. Environmentally-oriented tourism can
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play a key role in the conservation of these natural areas.
Mitigation can be achieved through various mechanisms, including technological improvements,
environmental management, economic measures, and behavioural change. Policy can support all of
these mechanisms. The following Section will set out with a discussion of mitigation options in the
transport sector. This will be followed by an overview of mitigation options for tourism establishments.
Policy options to support mitigation will be provided within each Section. Finally, tourist behaviour that
is relevant to climate change mitigation will be discussed.