Growing demand for international travel is promoting climate change and threatening many coastal resorts, United Nations officials have said.
Tourism accounts for 5% of global greenhouse gas emissions and this is expected to jump as increasing numbers of people travel, particularly by air.
Speaking during a conference at the Swiss resort of Davos, World Tourism Organisation secretary general Francesco Frangialli said: “The tourism industry is going to double between now and 2020. We cannot afford emissions to double in the same time.”
In a report prepared for the conference, the UN agency said global warming may extend the summers of northern countries such as Canada, Britain and Russia and create new opportunities for travel in polar regions.
But other sites are at risk from rising world temperatures and resulting environmental shifts. Scuba diving and snorkelling were seen as under threat from an increase in sea temperatures, while safari operators could suffer at the hands of a “spectacular decrease” in lions, elephants and rhinoceroses in Africa.
The Maldives could lose entire islands with a small increase in sea levels, while urban sites such as Venice and Lower Manhattan could be submerged, it said.