Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: 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. The tourism carbon footprint grew 2.3 times faster than the rest of the economy, reaching nearly 9% of global emissions by 2019. Rapid tourism demand growth (3.8% per year) has outpaced energy efficiency gains among businesses (0.3% per year).
Source: Nature Communications
Language: English
Subfield: Environmental Engineering
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $6,790
Awards: Reducing global tourism carbon emissions , Quantifying emergence and dynamics of foodborne epidemics in Australia, Sustainable Australian food production within secure global supply chains, Assessing absolute sustainability of global cities, Developing a global environmental, social and economic information system, Unifying global approaches to environmental footprinting
OpenAlex ID: W4405237746