Global tourism organisations warned the sector is “pretty far” from reaching its targets on reducing CO2 emissions as the Cop26 climate conference wound up with a declaration that disappointed many island destinations.
Last minute changes at the summit saw an agreement to “phase out” coal and fossil fuel subsidies changed to “phase down”.
World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) director of sustainability Christopher Imbsen said: “The sentiment from leaders around the world is that this is our last chance. Unfortunately, we’re pretty far from reaching targets.”
He told an Abta Decarbonising Tourism webinar: “Travel and tourism contributes 8% to 11% of greenhouse gas emissions.”
Dirk Glaesser, sustainable tourism development director at the UN World Tourism Organisation, said governments and industry have “talked about” measuring emissions “but very little has been implemented”.
The WTTC launched a Net Zero Roadmap for travel last week, but Imbsen acknowledged: “There are insufficient budgets for climate action.”
The UK was one of 18 governments to sign up to an International Aviation Climate Ambition Coalition at Cop26, committing to “ambitious actions to reduce aviation CO2 emissions”. But major aviation markets including Germany, Italy, China, India, Brazil and Russia are not part of the coalition.
The industry Sustainable Aviation coalition urged “a step-change in approach from governments” and easyJet announced it had joined a UN-backed Race to Zero campaign. Chief executive Johan Lundgren said: “We have a responsibility to minimise the impact of our flights.”
Yet Cait Hewitt, policy director at the Aviation Environment Federation (AEF), warned: “Politicians seem to be living in a fairy tale world where the aviation sector overcomes all the barriers to decarbonisation. The technologies are scarcely off the drawing board and sustainable aviation fuels [SAFs] are a long way from being zero carbon.”
Abta announced a partnership with Deloitte to help members decarbonise. Deloitte lead on climate change Emily Cromwell said: “Sustainability is an existential need for your business. The first step is to understand your footprint and how climate change is going to impact your business.”