Here’s What Stepping Up on Climate Change Means for Global Tourism
Photo Credit: A pre-pandemic beach view from Barbados, a signatory to the Glasgow Declaration Flickr Commons / David Stanley
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It's a historic moment for the industry, with climate now sitting at the top of the global tourism agenda, even if many more stakeholders are yet to join the party. But rallying behind the climate emergency might just be the thing that resolves tourism’s many woes, everywhere.
After years of collective silence and inertia from most businesses on climate action, the travel industry has reached a turning point. For the first time, more than 300 players in global tourism have agreed to stand behind a single roadmap addressing climate change.
By signing the Glasgow Declaration on Climate Action in Tourism, every signatory makes a public commitment to cut its emissions by 50 percent by 2030 and to reach net zero by 2050. An effort originally spearheaded by Tourism Declares A Climate Emergency, the declaration officially launched on Thursday at COP26.
The significance of this effort is also historic in that it will be collaboratively led by the UN World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) and the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC), two of travel’s leading bodies that had failed to align on key issues in recent years.
"We are launching this action and this declaration together and this is again a nice and good beginning of this long term and very important project," said Zurab Pololikashvili, secretary general of the UNWTO, at the launch event on Thursday.
The declaration’s framework and language was also developed with input from a diverse range of groups in tourism and conservation, including the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, Pacific Asia Travel Association, European Travel Commission, Caribbean Tourism Organization, South Pacific Tourism Organization, International Union for Conservation of Nature, Planeterra, Cuidadores de Destinos, Women in Travel, Sustentur, George Washington University and Travel Unity, among others.
“Two years ago, there was hardly any talk about climate action planning; we weren't hearing much from the big players like UNWTO and WTTC, and now we've got a joined up framework aligning the sector around the common common target,” said Jeremy Sampson, CEO of The Travel Foundation, which is partnering with both international organizations to lead this effort. “We've got the expectation now that literally hundreds of organizations will be developing climate action plans, which is great.”
As of Thursday, among the signatories of the Glasgow Declaration are The Travel Corporation, G Adventures, Intrepid Travel, Iberostar Group, Accor, Skyscanner, Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States, Scotland, Norway, Netherlands, Barbados, and Micronesia.
These more than 300 tourism b
