Worldwide tourism accounted for 8 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions from 2009 to 2013, new research finds, making the sector a bigger polluter than the construction industry.
The study, which looks at the spending habits of travelers in 160 countries, shows that the impact of tourism on global emissions could be four times larger than previously thought.
The findings suggest that tourism could threaten the achievement of the goals of the Paris agreement, a study author told Carbon Brief.
However, the results may still be underestimating the total carbon footprint of tourism, another scientist told Carbon Brief, because they do not consider the impact of non-CO2 emissions from the aviation industry.
The global tourism industry is rapidly expanding. Fueled by falling air travel prices and a growing global middle class, the number of international holiday-makers is currently growing at a rate of 3-5 percent per year.
The new study, published in Nature Climate Change, explores how the recent growth of global tourism has impacted greenhouse gas emissions.
Tourists contribute to climate change in a number of ways—through travel by air, rail and road, for example, and by consuming goods and services, such as food, accommodation and souvenirs.
For the new analysis, the researchers considered all of these factors together in order to calculate tourism’s “global carbon footprint,” explained study author Dr. Arunima Malik, a lecturer in sustainability from the University of Sydney. She told Carbon Brief:
“Our analysis is comprehensive and, hence, takes into account all the upstream supply chains to quantify the impacts of tourist spending on food, clothing, transport and hospitality.”
The research finds that, between 2009 and 2013, tourism’s annual global carbon footprint increased from 3.9 to 4.5bn tonnes of CO2 equivalent.
This figure is four times higher than previous estimates and accounts for 8 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, the research finds. The rise is largely driven by an increased demand for goods and services—rather than air travel, the research finds.
However, it is important to note that the study did not consider the impact of aviation’s non-CO2 emissions, such as contrails, said Prof. Stefan Gössling, a tourism researcher from Linnaeus University in Sweden, who was not involved in the study. This means the study may have underestimated the total emissions from aviation, he told Carbon Brief:
“Notably, the non-CO2 warming effects from aviation, which, calculated for a given year, make aviation twice or three times as climate-relevant, are not even considered in this paper.”
The new study draws on data taken from 160 countries. For each country, the researchers calculated the total amount of emissions caused by its own citizens going on holiday (“residence emissions”) and as a result of tourists visiting the country (“destination emissions”).
Looking specifically at resident emissions, the research finds that the U.S. has the largest carbon footprint of any country, followed by China, Germany and India.
The results also suggest that the tourism carbon footprint of many countries, such as Germany and New Zealand, is primarily being driven by domestic trips, said study author Dr. Ya-Yen Sun, a senior lecturer in tourism at the University of Queensland.
The analysis also shows that richer nations tend to have larger tourism-related footprints than poorer ones.
About half of the total global footprint of tourism from 2009-13 was driven by travel between countries with a per person gross domestic product (GDP) of more than $25,000, the research shows. In the UK, the GDP per person is just under $40,000 (£29,000).
Projections suggest that world’s average GDP will increase from $10,750 per year in 2017 to $13,210 per year in 2022. As the world gets richer, its tourism carbon footprint is likely to grow larger, the research suggests.
Using models of financial growth, the researchers find that tourism’s carbon footprint could reach 5-6.5bn tonnes of COeq by 2025. This figure would account for roughly 12 percent of current greenhouse gas emissions.
Much of this growth could be driven by continued economic growth in less developed countries, Sun said:
“Travel activity is largely determined by income level and the total outbound number is also influenced by the sheer population size. For developing countries that embrace rapid economic development with a growing population, they are very likely to change from net destinations to net origins [for tourists].
Read more: Eco Watch
