Knowledge Networking Portal for Sustainable & Responsible Tourism
Climate crisis: urgent action required!
The entire global Travel & Tourism sector to act NOW
Last Friday in Qawra, Malta, Hon. Julia Farrugia Portelli addressed members of the SUNx Malta Climate Friendly Travel Think Tank on the Government of Malta’s commitment to establishing itself as a centre for Climate Friendly Travel.
The key takeaway from the meeting was that the eXistential Climate Crisis requires even more urgent action by the entire global Travel & Tourism sector than has been generally recognized to date.
Seven key calls to action
The key calls to action from the Think Tank were:
The Climate Crisis is eXistential. All stakeholders including Transport, Hospitality, Travel Services, and Infrastructure Providers must urgently start the transformation in 2020 to get onto the Paris 1.5o trajectory within the next 7- 10 years. Governments, Companies, communities and consumers, must all engage and take action NOW.
“Climate Friendly Travel”. Under the banner of Climate Friendly Travel, the industry must adopt this as an imperative and the new norm.
Fully transforming all modes of transport was seen as pivotal. SUNx Malta’s call for a Moon-shot approach for aviation to further accelerate technological research and deployment was strongly supported, which must include the immediate distribution and rapid scaling up of currently available solutions to substantially reduce aviation fossil fuel reliance.
Climate Financing. Citing the Green New Deal as an example, the Travel & Tourism sector must engage more actively with emerging Green Finance programs to be able to secure adequate funds for transformation. High quality offsetting of carbon impacts were seen as short-term transition instruments but totally inadequate as a long-term solution. In this context it was broadly believed that aviation action to date was falling behind the rapidly intensifying transformation need.
Emerging innovations and technologies. Building refurbishment, cruise shipping, carbon reduction, waste to fuel transformation, developing consumer behaviour and digital opportunities.
The SUNx Malta Climate Friendly Travel Registry of Ambitions was reviewed and endorsed, as was the initiative with WISeKey to develop an innovative consumer facing secure platform.
Education of the Next Generation was underscored as a high priority with an emphasis on an accredited Graduate Diploma, from the Gozo Institute of Tourism Studies Campus. The SUNx Malta 100,000 STRONG Climate Friendly Travel Champions and as well as its school’s program is a very positive step forward to support company and community transformation. Additionally, improving the research base was underscored on both decarbonization and sector resilience.
MORE: See the full press release here
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| Concerned URL | https://mailchi.mp/thesunprogram/climate-friendly-travel-think-tank-conclusion?e=bb13eec395 |
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| Address | |
| Source | SUNx |
| Keywords | Climate change adaptation |
| Target group(s) | Destinations , Businesses , Travellers , Education, Research, Consultancy , NGOs, Partnerships, Networks , Governments & Administrations |
| Topics | Climate Change - Energy and Resource Efficiency |
