Will Tourism Pay The Price For Global Warming?

Travellers and the travel industry will have to make significant sacrifices to mitigate the effects of climate change, which is on course to cause catastrophic damage to the planet, says a prominent climatologist.

UK professor Kevin Anderson of the Tyndall Centre, in delivering the keynote speech for the recent World Responsible Tourism Day 2015 in London, pulled no punches when laying out the level of the threat facing both the travel industry and society at large, reports managing editor Michael Baginski in this week’s digital edition of Canadian Travel Press.

Commenting on the established target of keeping temperature rise to within two degrees centigrade, Anderson said, “At a two-degrees rise many millions of poor people, mostly in the southern hemisphere, will die. It means we are prepared to sacrifice the lives of many poor, low emitting people.”

However, he warned that currently we are heading for something far warmer — at least a four degrees rise, adding that: “Four degrees centigrade warming is incompatible with an organized global community. We will reach for a kalashnikov and start killing each other.”

Rather than expressing optimism for the solutions the industry is implementing, he argued, “We cannot build the low carbon supply fast enough. In the interim we therefore have to reduce the level of consumption.”

This will mean the sacrifice of many of the luxuries richer people have become accustomed to, he said — for example, requiring a dramatic reduction in the number of flights people take.

In addition, he advised that all new hotels should be built using passive design (i.e. requiring zero external energy inputs); that local tourism should be encouraged; and that people should stop going on city breaks by plane.

He concluded, “The pain the rich will have to undergo for us to meet our climate goals is much less than that that the poor will have to undergo if we don’t.”

For the full story, check out this week’s digital edition of Canadian Travel Press by clicking here.