News Drivers of global tourism carbon emissions

"Tourism has a critical role to play in global carbon emissions pathway. This study estimates the global tourism carbon footprint and identifies the key drivers using environmentally extended input-output modelling. The results indicate that global tourism emissions grew 3.5% p.a. between 2009-2019, double that of the worldwide economy, reaching 5.2 Gt CO2-e or 8.8% of total global GHG emissions in 2019. The primary drivers of emissions growth are slow technology efficiency gains (0.3% p.a.) combined with sustained high growth in tourism demand (3.8% p.a. in constant 2009 prices). Tourism emissions are associated with alarming distributional inequalities. Under both destination- and resident-based accounting, the twenty highest-emitting countries contribute three-quarters of the global footprint. The disparity in per-capita tourism emissions between high- and low-income nations now exceeds two orders of magnitude. National tourism decarbonisation strategies will require demand volume thresholds to be defined to align global tourism with the Paris Agreement."



Concerned URL https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-54582-7
Address
Source Nature.com: Drivers of global tourism carbon emissions
Target group(s) Education, Research, Consultancy
Topics Climate Change - Energy and Resource Efficiency