Greenhouse gas emissions from tourism accounted for 8.8% of the global total in 2019, according to a study published on Tuesday in Nature Communications.
Moroever, they grew by 3.5% per year between 2009 and 2019, twice as much as emissions from the global economy (+1.5%), the study showed.
Tourism growth has outstripped that of the global economy, with revenues almost doubling in a decade, from $3.5 trillion in 2009 to $6.0 trillion in 2019. This represents an annual growth rate of 5.5%, according to the study.
This consumption is associated with a tourism carbon footprint of 5.2 gigatonnes (Gt) of CO2 equivalent in 2019. This is broken down into direct emissions, which amounted to 1.8 Gt (52% from aviation, 18% from road transport), indirect emissions, which represented 2.5 Gt (34% from services, 14% from oil production) and emissions from private vehicles (0.9 Gt).
In total, global tourism in 2019 was responsible for "8.8% of global anthropogenic warming," according to the study.
To achieve the objective of limiting global warming to +1.5°C, as set out in the Paris Agreement, the sector's 5.2 Gt of greenhouse gas emissions would have to be reduced by more than 10% per year until 2050.
A simple reduction in the volume of tourism (for example, all countries reducing their demand for tourism by 5%) is " not an ideal approach," according to the Nature Communications study, because it is neither fair nor equitable from one country to the next.
Limiting the growth in demand for air transport, particularly international long-haul flights, "would make it possible to achieve desirable results from a climatic and social point of view," the study's authors propose.
