It is always interesting how those most vulnerable to a risk are the least prepared. Does it mean that they are blissfully ignorant; do they choose to ignore the threat or are they unable to respond – or do they believe that there is in fact no threat? On the eve of crucial negotiations about climate change mitigation in Copenhagen it seems that the tourism industry and closely-related sectors are ill-prepared for the threat of climate change. At least that is what consultants, KPMG, claim.
There can be little doubt that the tourism, aviation and transport sectors are particularly at risk both from direct effects – such as sea-level rise, changing ecosystems, species extinctions, extreme weather events, etc. in the case of tourism – as well as from attempts to mitigate climate change by cutting carbon emissions. Regulated reductions in travel-related carbon emissions, carbon taxes and rising fuel prices precipitated by the looming oil crisis will all conspire to seriously crimp long-haul tourism (bad news for ecotourism) and air travel, assuming that substantive goals are agreed on at Copenhagen. Even if the world’s politicians lack the courage to agree to substantive emissions reductions, as might be the case, “peak oil” will eventually force what we fail to do voluntarily.
KPMG's Risk Preparedness Framework (Source: KMPG IT Advisory: Find your shade of green. Copyright KPMG 2009 All rights reserved)
KPMG’s Risk Preparedness Framework, reproduced here (click to view full size), shows the transport, tourism and aviation sectors in the “danger zone” where risk as a result of climate change is perceived to be greater than preparedness. What might “preparedness” mean? Prepared to mitigate (or prevent) climate change as the designers of Copenhagen envisage? Or prepared to adapt to the inevitability of climate change?
Should Copenhagen fail we all enter a brave new world of adaptation to climate change, where we place our trust in geo-engineering technologies and where, without massive transfers of technology and resources to developing nations, they will be cut loose and left at the mercy of the elements. Failure at Copenhagen will amount to a vote for vested interests – and some of those interests may include the airline industry, economies dependent on mass and growing tourism, etc.
The language in the World Tourism Organization’s (WTO) Davos to Bali declaration suggests that adaptation is the preferred and expected course for most of its members. Developing countries, it seems, have resigned themselves to adapting to the “inevitability” of climate change. Consider the Indian delegation’s statement at the Ministers’ Summit on Tourism and Climate Change in London in 2007:
…we must significantly shore up our abilities to cope with and adapt to climate change. To be able to do so, we need development, which is also the best form of adaptation. … we need to …. see what can be done to adapt to the inevitability of further global warming.
One wonders whether “development” will be enough when a 100 million Bangladeshi climate refugees stream into India as they flee their flooded delta?
Brazil’s delegation also weighed in with a plea for assistance with adaptation:
Assist developing countries where the tourism sector is particularly vulnerable to the adverse effect of climate change, in order to allow them to meet the related costs of adaptation.
Never mind that the continuing assault on its Amazon rainforests contributes massively to climate change, or that the country is banking on exploiting recent deep-sea oil finds.
Australia, a developed country which has distinguished itself by failing to ratify the Kyoto Protocol along with the USA, and probably informed by its economic vulnerability as a long-haul tourism destination dependent on air travel, put a different spin on it:
The tourism sector … should not be disadvantaged through the imposition of a disproportionate burden either on tourism as a whole or on vital components such as aviation.
The tourism-sector-as-victim argument.
If all else fails however, reach for the jobs/poverty alleviation/economic growth arguments – as the WTO Secretary-General did in Bali. The message seems to be: yes climate change is potentially catastrophic, but don’t touch tourism (and by extension, air travel) as it creates jobs, grows economies and benefits the poor in far-off destinations (Australia excluded).
I have also wrestled with the dilemma of the climate implications of long-haul travel versus the dependence of biodiversity conservation on ecotourism, especially in Africa. This is however not an environmental-socio-economic trade-off, but an attempt to weigh ecological alternatives. One could, however, argue that biodiversity is doomed by climate change over the long-term, notwithstanding short-term attempts to mitigate biodiversity destruction… And when biodiversity goes, species, livelihoods and the ecosystem services that sustain all life will follow in short order.
Another indication that the tourism industry has not quite come to terms with what sustainability might entail is a reference to the need for “tourism to grow in a sustainable manner” in the Davos Declaration after the Second International Conference on Climate Change and Tourism at Davos in 2007. Besides the incongruous proximity of the words “grow” and “sustainable” in that phrase, the methods of achieving this through mitigating emissions, adapting to climate and employing technology to improve energy efficiency are insufficient, although laudable. True (strong) ecological sustainability means that material and energy throughputs must be limited to what the ecosphere can sustainably supply (resources) and absorb (waste, emissions). Best effort mitigation and minimisation are not going to cut it.
Take as an example the need to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 60%-80% of current levels by 2050 in order to limit the average global temperature increase to 2oC. Suppose air travel volumes and aircraft-miles were clamped at current levels and that all airline fleets were replaced with Boeing Dreamliners tomorrow. Even in this unlikely, zero-growth scenario aviation emissions would be reduced by only 20%, which means that tourism would not be contributing anywhere near its share of reductions. Outside of hoping for a technological silver bullet to come to the rescue, the implications for tourism are pretty stark and understandably nobody wants to really deal with them.
So, no – the tourism industry is not ready for climate risk.
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