Introduction
Public and political interest in climate change has increased considerably in recent years, culminating in the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December 2009. The conference represented a critical milestone in the negotiating process to strengthen international cooperation on climate change and replace the Kyoto Protocol of 1997. The Copenhagen Conference was the focus of unprecedented public and media attention and was attended by 115 heads of state and an estimated 40,000 delegates, representing the United Nations and other intergovernmental organizations, governments of all levels, non-governmental organizations, faith based organizations, scientists and the business community.
The great anticipation with which many concerned about climate change awaited the conference in Copenhagen was reflected in the event’s nickname of “Hopenhagen”. Expectations were high that the international community would negotiate substantial greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets for all major emitters as well as emissions targets for developing countries with larger economies and GHG emissions, agree upon terms to mobilize technology transfer to foster emissions reductions in developing nations, provide a framework and financial incentives to protect the remaining great forests in developing countries and provide a large increase in reliable funding for climate change adaptation in most vulnerable countries.
Such a landmark agreement would have major implications for economies and economic sectors around the world – and tourism would be no exception. With such large stakes on the table, a wide range of key tourism stakeholders, such as the United Nations World Tourism Organisation, International Civil Aviation Organization, International Air Transport Association, World Travel and Tourism Council and several NGOs were present in Copenhagen to represent the sector’s interests. With tourism’s recognized growing contribution and key regional vulnerabilities to climate change, the Davos Declaration on Climate Change and Tourism declared that climate change “must be considered the greatest challenge to the sustainability of tourism in the twenty-first century”. This Special Issue brings together research on both of these aspects of climate and tourism, at a time when climate change is at the forefront of many political discussions and business decisions.
The Journal of Sustainable Tourism has fostered a dialogue on the sectoral implications of climate change for well over a decade, with its first publication on the issue 17 years ago and two Special Issues in 2006 on the risks of climate change for tourism destinations, and tourist transport and related GHG emissions. To better situate the place of tourism at the recent Copenhagen Climate Conference, this paper begins with a brief overview of the evolution of the climate change issue within tourism research and practice. The nature of the discussion at the two tourism-specific side events in Copenhagen is then reviewed in the context of the outcomes of the conference. The final section introduces the nine papers that comprise this Special Issue and their respective contributions to this rapidly developing area of tourism research.
PROGRESS OF THE CLIMATE CHANGE DEAL:
Scholarship on tourism and climate change now extends over a period of 25 years, with the first scientific paper on the potential implications of climate change for tourism published in 1986. Very little progress to advance the understanding of the implications of climate change for tourism was made over the next decade, and the First Assessment Report (1990) of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change did not mention tourism. Wall’s (1998) review of the place of tourism in the Second Assessment Report (1995) concluded that “While it is encouraging that tourism is receiving greater attention in IPCC reports, it is also apparent that the likely consequences of climate change for tourism and recreation are not well understood”.
Climate change and tourism scholarship saw substantive growth towards the end of the 1990s, with the number of publications increasing threefold between 1990–1994 and 1995– 1999. The contribution of tourism to global climate change through GHG emissions from the transportation of millions of tourists was first discussed in 1996 and was quantified for a destination by Becken (2002). The IPCC Third Assessment Report (2001) did not recognize the contribution of tourism to climate change through GHG emissions. The volume of publications on climate change and tourism once again doubled between 1995–1999 and 2000–2004, with contributions from North America, Europe and New Zealand and the seminal IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Aviation. The diversity of contributions from academic fields increased substantially, and while the multidisciplinary nature of the field is a strength, it is also a challenge, with differing research approaches and perspectives on the validity of assumptions.
The three synthesis works for the field were published in 2005 to 2007. However, a number of regional chapters also noted that while tourism was extremely economically significant, there was a paucity of research to draw on. In 2007, a tourism-focused climate change assessment was commissioned by the UNWTO, United Nations Environment Programme and World Meteorological Organization. It provided a comprehensive review of projected climate change impacts, evaluated the relative regional vulnerability of tourism destinations, discussed the state of adaptation within the sector, provided the first quantitative estimate of the contribution of the global tourism sector to climate change (approximately 5% of CO2 emissions in 2005) and set out options for decoupling future growth in the tourism sector.
PROBLEMS OF THE CLIMATE CHANGE DEAL:
While climate change and tourism continue to mature and attract more and more attention from scholars and the tourism community, a number of key knowledge gaps and limitations remain. One of the most obvious limitations is the geographic scope of research, which has largely focused on tourism in Western countries. Addressing the major gaps on how climate change will affect the natural and cultural resources critical for tourism in Africa, the Caribbean and Pacific Islands, South America and large parts of East Asia must be a priority, considering the relative importance of tourism to the economies of some of these nations. Questions related to the north-south social inequities of climate policy also require greater attention.
Climate change adaptation research remains far less developed than in other economic sectors, with risk appraisals among tourism operators consistently finding low awareness of climate change and little evidence of strategic planning in anticipation of future changes in climate. The ability of the tourism industry to cope with a range of recent shocks, including Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, terrorism attacks and the Asian tsunami, suggests a relatively high adaptive capacity in the sector; however, knowledge of the capacity to cope successfully with future climate regimes and the broader environmental impacts and societal ramifications remains rudimentary. Research on tourism’s contribution to climate change is still hampered by issues relating to data availability, accessibility and compatibility. Data quality is also a major problem when trying to quantify tourism’s GHG emissions.
These affect current inventories and also our ability to provide meaningful predictions and scenarios for future developments. From a mitigation perspective there is still an insufficient integration of research that offers technical solutions into the tourism context. Behavioural changes necessary to reduce tourism’s carbon footprint are just starting to be explored by tourism researchers, for example in the context of “slow travel” as an alternative form of tourism. But a number of authors have noted the challenges associated with changing tourist behaviours in order to reduce travel-related GHG emissions.
Finally, policy analysis in relation to climate mitigation and tourism is very rudimentary and at this point does not provide meaningful insight as to which policies might be effective in achieving emissions reductions without undermining tourist activities as such. There is also very limited understanding of how climate change impacts will interact with other long-term social and market trends influencing tourism demand and development, including the following: ageing populations in industrialized countries, increasing travel safety and health concerns, increased environmental and cultural awareness, advances in information and transportation technology and shifts towards shorter and more frequent holidays.
The aforementioned limitations illustrate that progress in this field has been slow, which is not atypical of sustainability initiatives in tourism more broadly, and that the field is just beginning to emerge from what we would define as an “awareness-raising phase”, both within tourism studies and within the tourism sector. Scholars are only now beginning to develop the capability to deliver relevant scientific knowledge that can be used by the tourism decision-makers in both the public and private sectors. Given the increasing recognition of the need to adapt to future climatic change, regardless of the success of mitigation efforts, greater emphasis on research that specifically addresses the informational needs of the tourism stakeholders should be considered. Future research must continue to build multior interdisciplinary collaborations to infuse new ideas and research techniques to address the aforementioned knowledge gaps and ensure that possible effects of climate change are effectively factored into relevant tourism policies and development and management plans.
REFERENCE:
1 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/09669581003668540
This article has been written by Shivangi Yadav, 3rd year, BBA LLB student at JEMTEC school of law, Greater Noida
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