Global tourism has a bigger share of Carbon Emissions than thought

The carbon footprint of tourism is about four times larger than previously thought, according to a world-first study published in Nature Climate Change. The researchers worked to assess the entire supply chain of tourism, which includes transportation, accommodation, food and beverages, souvenirs, clothing, cosmetics and other goods. Altogether, global tourism produces about 8 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, much more than previous estimates.

The study, published in Nature Climate Change, estimates that global tourism produced about 4.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2013. Air travel accounts for one-fifth of these emissions. And the United States, which is responsible for about a billion metric tons of CO2 per year, has the biggest footprint of all.

The research used information from multiple databases cataloguing tourism-related expenditures, including data collected by dozens of individual nations as well as the United Nations’ World Tourism Organization. They analyzed the data by assigning all tourism-related emissions to the travelers’ countries of origin, and by assigning all emissions to the travelers’ destination countries.

The report shows that tourism-related emissions increased by around 15 per cent over that period, from 3.9 gigatonnes (Gt) of carbon-dioxide equivalent (CO₂-e) to 4.5 gigatonnes. This rise primarily came from tourist spending on transport, shopping and food.

The US is followed by China, Germany and India. Small island destinations have the highest per-capita destination-based footprints. Maldives tops the list with 95 per cent of the island’s tourism-related emissions come from international visitors.