Tourism responsible for 8% of global emissions

 From Carbon Brief

Worldwide tourism accounted for 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions from 2009 to 2013, new research finds, making the sector a bigger polluter than the construction industry.

The study, which looks at the spending habits of travellers in 160 countries, shows that the impact of tourism on global emissions could be four times larger than previously thought.

The findings suggest that tourism could threaten the achievement of the goals of the Paris Agreement, a study author tells Carbon Brief.

However, the results may still be underestimating the total carbon footprint of tourism, another scientist tells Carbon Brief, because they do not consider the impact of non-CO2 emissions from the aviation industry.

The global tourism industry is rapidly expanding. Fuelled by falling air travel prices and a growing global middle class, the number of international holidaymakers is currently growing at a rate of 3-5% per year.

The new study, published in Nature Climate Change, explores how the recent growth of global tourism has impacted greenhouse gas emissions.

Tourists contribute to climate change in a number of ways – through travel by air, rail and road, for example, and by consuming goods and services, such as food, accommodation and souvenirs.

For the new analysis, the researchers considered all of these factors together in order to calculate tourism’s “global carbon footprint”, explains study author Dr Arunima Malik, a lecturer in sustainability from the University of Sydney. She tells Carbon Brief:

“Our analysis is comprehensive and, hence, takes into account all the upstream supply chains to quantify the impacts of tourist spending on food, clothing, transport and hospitality.”

The research finds that, between 2009 and 2013, tourism’s annual global carbon footprint increased from 3.9 to 4.5bn tonnes of CO2 equivalent.

This figure is four times higher than previous estimates and accounts for 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions, the research finds. The rise is largely driven by an increased demand for goods and services – rather than air travel, the research finds. [Total emissions of greenhouse gases from air travel are twice the CO2-only emissions]

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