Plane crazy: Tourism demand for air travel leads to rise in carbon pollution

DOMESTIC and internation­al tourism account for eight per cent of greenhouse gas emissions, four times more than previously estimated, according to a study pub­lished on Monday (7).

As in past decades, the United States is the single largest emitter of tourism-re­lated carbon emissions, with other wealthy nations – Ger­many, Canada and Britain – also in the top 10.

But fast-growing middle classes have moved several emerging economies up the ranking, with China in sec­ond place and India, Mexico and Brazil in fourth, fifth and sixth, respectively.

The multi-trillion dollar industry’s carbon footprint is expanding rapidly, driven by demand for energy-intensive air travel, researchers report­ed in the journal Nature Cli­mate Change.

“Tourism is set to grow faster than many other eco­nomic sectors,” with revenue projected to swell by four per cent annually through 2025, noted lead author Arunima Malik, a researcher at the University of Sydney’s busi­ness school.

Holding the sector’s carbon pollution in check will likely require carbon taxes or CO2 trading schemes for aviation, the researchers concluded.

International travel involv­ing long-haul flights is among the fastest-growing sectors, and could threaten efforts to rein in planet-warming carbon pollution.

The total number of air passengers is expected to al­most double by 2036 to 7.8 billion per year, according to the International Air Trans­port Association (IATA).

The aviation industry ac­counts for two per cent of all human-generated CO2 emis­sions, and would rank 12th if it were a country.

“We see very fast tourism demand growth from China and India over the past few years, and expect this trend will continue in the next dec­ade or so,” Ya-Sen Sun, a pro­fessor at the University of Queensland Business School in Australia, and co-author of the study, said.

“What’s worrying is that people with a rising income tend to travel further, more frequently, and with a higher reliance on aviation.”

International travel ac­counts for a quarter of tour­ism-related carbon emissions.

Neither tourism nor avia­tion are currently covered by the 2015 Paris climate treaty.

In 2016, however, 191 countries struck a deal – vol­untary until 2027 – under which the aviation industry would curb most of its green­house emissions after 2020 by diverting about two per cent of its revenue to refor­estation and other carbon-reducing projects.

On Monday, the UN’s cli­mate chief said during UN climate talks in Bonn that it was “in the interest” of the tourism industry to cut its carbon pollution.