Your Love of Travel vs Global Carbon Footprint

It’s revealed, the carbon footprint of tourism is larger than what we previously thought. And here I am, ready to throw myself all the way in to write about it and post it on a blog dedicated mostly for TRAVELLING. Nothing so far beats those sparkles in your eyes while you’re out there doing some exploring in between walls and buildings in cities you’ve never visited before. It’s all harmless fun, after all. Or is it? Oh, how my heart sunk reading that, put together, global tourism produces about 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Researchers conducted a global survey of 160 countries between 2009 and 2013 in order to calculate the amount of CO2 emissions produced by the tourism industry worldwide. By doing so, they scanned more than a billion supply chains aiming to track the goods and service tourists bought. The shocking discovery then showed that the tourism industry’s carbon footprint around the planet grew by 15% from 3.9 to 4.5 gigatons of equivalent carbon dioxide, with transportation, shopping, and food sectors as the three most significant contributors.

And looking for how rapid the tourism industry is growing, things are more likely to get worse. The increasing wealth creation in many countries where more and more people are now able to travel for leisure makes tourism a trillion dollar industry that is expected to grow by 4% each year, faster than international trade.

Whose responsibility is it then? I personally agree two compare these two perspectives for allocating responsibility for the emissions – residence based accounting and destination-based accounting. The former perspective allocates emissions to the country of residence of tourists while the latter emphasizes on to the country of destination. It puts a simple question, “Are tourism-related carbon emissions the responsibility of travellers or tourist destinations?”

If the travellers are the ones should be held responsible, then we should identify the countries that send the most tourists out into the world and then find ways to reduce the carbon footprint of their travel. On the other hand, destination-based accounting can offer insights into popular tourism spots that would benefit most from certain regulations and technology improvements to reduce carbon footprint of tourism. Tracking emissions under destination-based accounting over a specific period of time could help policymakers and researchers to answer questions about the success of incentive regulations and schemes.

Responsible tourism seems to be a broad solution to reduce the industry’s massive carbon footprint. Many agree that by implementing regulations and incentives together, it will be an effective way to encourage low carbon operations. At personal level, it is also worth looking at the carbon cost of your flights, choosing to offset your emissions where possible, and supporting tourism companies that aim to operate sustainably. Since extra weight on planes burns fuel faster, try to travel light and reduce the weight amount of your luggage. You’ll also want to go direct and stay longer if possible. Last but not least, using other forms of transportation such as train journeys, electric vehicles, cycle tours, buses or even hiking offer incredible ways to get from A to B at a lower emission cost while presenting you also of incredible view of your destination as you travel through it!