CoP15 Copenhagen Agreement

Gordon Sillence, coordinator of the` Travel and Tourism in the Green Economy`  Symposium held by European Travel Commission and the UN World Tourism Organisation and hosted by VisitSweden in Gothenburg this September, gives his personal view on what he learned during the Symposium preparation process about tourism,  climate change and what needs to happen in Copenhagen.

First of all, I would like to remind people of what I said in the Symposium Briefing Papers about my experience of the  2002 Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development ie in Copenhagen, I don’t want to be impressed by spectacle, I want to be impressed by substance.  As Copenhagen gets closer, I am hearing the same stories about government inertia and inconclusiveness starting to play down the idea that the Agreement will be workable. ´Kyoto and the World Summit on Sustainable Development revisited` crosses my mind, but Copenhagen needs to be different.  The tourism sector as a whole needs Copenhagen to be effective.  Why? Because 5, 10, 20 or 50 years down the road, we will still need an environmental base for the industry, and at the moment the free-for-all market approach that has globalised the world needs to take into consideration how to conserve what`s left after decades – no centuries - of ruthless development processes that are now threatening the underlying ecosystem fabric on which we are completely dependent.

As the Symposium content coordinator, I was in contact with a range of high-level organizational players, all with their particular specialist knowledge or point of interest in climate change or tourism.  For example, the UN WTO team for the symposium included Sec Gen Taleb Rifai, Assistant Sec Gen Geoffrey Lipman, Sustainable Tourism Director Luigi Cabrini and the Hotel Energy Solutions project manager Zoritsa Urosowic.  They are all highly informed of what is going in the tourism sector -climate change debate, and have the science and evidence-based good practice experience gained from the UNWTO/UNEP  Davos Climate Change and sustainable tourism process. Equally, I spoke with Jean Claude Baumgarten, CEO of the WTTC, representing the corporate business interest in the issue. My research also covered what the WWF and Green groups would like to see happen in Copenhagen, plus how different countries from all over the world are viewing the problems and opportunities.  My overall impression is that every single individual I spoke with is on a steep learning curve, and can only make decisions a) on the knowledge they have acquired and b) on the value system they use to interpret this knowledge.  Both our knowledge and value systems need to be of the highest order if we are to make genuine progress on these burning issues.

Contemporary science is pointing to the fact that large-scale climate changes are taking place now - and at an ever-quickening pace.  The subject of climate change may be regarded as an intellectual topic of the future discussed by the few in some countries, but in many countries it is already an everyday issue affecting the daily life of millions. The beautifully-filmed documentary  ´Home`   (www.goodplanet.org) dramatically shows us what is at stake, and who is paying for the excesses of our current global development patterns.  The next step is then to see what we can do – both as  individuals and in our professional capacity – to avoid being part of the problem and start becoming part of the solution.

Climate Change is a complex subject, as is sustainable tourism.  The knowledge on both subjects is changing rapidly, and even with the best of intentions it is easy to end up taking what appears to a  correct decision, but over time is seen as misguided judgment.  With such large scale problems and huge financial sums involved in Copenhagen, nobody wants to make the wrong decisions.  However, no decision is a wrong decision, as the business-as-usual scenario is the most short- sighted (but convenient) outcome of Copenhagen, deferring difficult problem-solving decision-making until it becomes crises management.

But what sort of agreement in Copenhagen will produce the desired environmental effects?  We are seeing a number of facts, figures and solutions emerging from different stakeholders, with different targets being argued for or against. Green coalitions are arguing for cuts of 45 percent by 2020 and 95 percent by 2050 as an "absolute minimum" in addition to providing "sufficient financial and technological support to enable developing countries to halt the destruction of forests and other ecosystems." The targets are well above those laid out by industrialized countries, which generally fall in the 15-30 percent range by 2020, and 80 percent by 2050.  As a sectoral example the WTTC is looking to its members to cut greenhouse gases on a voluntary basis between  25 % to 30% by 2025 and 50% by 2050, which does meet some medium term government targets, but is unlikely to impress most scientists and advocates of the precautionary development principle. 

With all these figures being bandied around, the 350 figure seems to make a great deal of sense, that is 350 parts per million of CO² in the atmosphere, which would avoid the 2^oC temperature rise that is likely to happen a 450 ppm.  The 450ppm limit has influenced much of the government wisdom, but we are currently  at 383 ppm and likely reach 450ppm by 2030, and then surpass that figure rapidly. Now a 2^oC increase in earth temperature could already have terminal effects on our existing economic, urban and even geographical formations, and therefore by extension on our tourism services and infrastructures,  but we just don’t know what, where, when or how.  That uncertainty clouds judgment, yet if anyone is truly interested in sustainable development, then the precautionary principle states we should aim for the biggest mitigation efforts.

That will be more expensive, require more management and a complete change in business values, so is unlikely to happen.  And it is precisely this unlikeliness that the tourism sector must respond to, if it wishes to improve the sustainability of its operations.  The global economy is in fact in its infancy, and there is plenty more mileage in the development of the tourism and travel sectors.  Global travel for ever greater numbers of people is also likely with projection of tourism volumes rising from the current figure of 1 billion to 1.6 billion by 2020. What the sector needs to ensure is that the economic, environmental and social conditions to develop this flow are secured in the Copenhagen agreement process. 

This requires behavior changes across all other sectors – eg the petroleum energy, transport, construction, agriculture and forest sectors are major green house gas contributors, and need to be better managed if tourism destinations and travel arrangements are to remain intact for the future.  Poor management of these sectors will impact the tourism sector  - and we have a string of examples from deforestation to unsustainable water management and inappropriate energy  provision to show this. Of course tourisms` own contribution to greenhouse gas emission and environmental degradation needs to be undertaken, and will be facilitated if made in conjunction with other sectors. Therefore inter-sectoral sustainability thinking that creates innovative techniques, products and services should be high on the agenda.

This better multi-sector management could be provided by UNEPs vision of a global Green Economy, fuelled by climate change mitigation expenditure and directed toward the Millennium Goals.  As a blueprint for each sector to move towards sustainability for itself and as society as a whole, the development of the green economy is in everyone`s interests.  Within this holistic investment planning framework, tourism stands out as reaching across sectors, borders  and subject matter to provide a catalytic role in solutions-oriented , globally co-ordinated national development programmes.  The  importance of tourism as a sustainable development tool  that could kickstart the greening of globalization should not be overlooked in Copenhagen. 

Accordingly, everyone also has a part to play.  Multi-sector, multi-stakeholder, multi-level (global to local) action in necessary.  How all of us can contribute is being defined more clearly as the urgency to change becomes more evident.  What should be borne in mind here is that we need to do is ensure the integrity of ecosystems as a whole, and not become fixated on carbon emissions at the expense of sound environmental conservation and management as the means to sustain the tourism sector.  

The Gothenburg symposium briefing material provides a useful starting point for tourism professionals and other stakeholders to see how climate change and the tourism sector are defining each other. What we have done is to create a Climate Change and Sustainable Tourism Learning Area for National Tourism Organizations on this issue on the DestiNet Sustainable Tourism Information & Communications Portal (http://destinet.ew.eea.europa.eu/topics/climate-change for the European Travel Commission. As I said earlier, we are all on a learning curve, and as the subject-matter knowledge base is changing so quickly, we need to belong to good information and knowledge networks in order to be informed well enough to develop the wisdom that will allow us to implement real win-win sustainable solutions to our collective problems.

Gordon Sillence is Executive Director of the DestiNet Partnership and Vice President of Ecotrans Network on Sustainable Tourism Development

Gordon.destinet@ecotrans.de  00351913315092 skype:gordon.sillence