Existing plans for the travel industry to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 are “woefully inadequate”, according to a new report published to coincide with the COP27 climate conference in Egypt.
The Envisioning Tourism in 2030 report by the Travel Foundation, a UK-based sustainability specialist, said that current strategies which rely on offsetting, technological efficiencies and biofuels, such as sustainable aviation fuels (SAF), would fail to achieve the sector’s net-zero emissions targets by 2050.
The report argued that additional measures “must be applied immediately to prevent further escalation of emissions” from travel and tourism.
The Travel Foundation has published the report in collaboration with CELTH (Centre of Expertise Leisure, Tourism and Hospitality), Breda University of Applied Sciences, the European Tourism Futures Institute and the Netherlands Board of Tourism and Conventions.
The report models a series of decarbonisation scenarios for the industry, based on forecasts that global trips are set to double between 2019 and 2050. But it found only one scenario that could achieve net-zero by 2050.
This scenario would require "trillion-dollar investments in all available decarbonisation measures", as well as "prioritising trips which can reduce emissions most readily – for instance those by road and rail”.
It would also need “some limits” to be imposed on the growth of air traffic, particularly capping the number of the longest-haul flights at 2019 levels. The report said that long-haul travel made up just 2 per cent of trips in 2019 but accounted for 19 per cent of travel’s total emissions and this would get worse if growth of these trips was not curtailed.
Menno Stokman, director at CELTH, said: “Current decarbonisation strategies will reach net-zero far too late. We must reshape the system - from a climate perspective, once we reach net-zero we can travel as much as we like.
“Shifts in investment will get us there within a decade for shorter-distance trips. But for long-haul we need more time, and we should take this into account as tourism plans its future.”
Jeremy Sampson, CEO of the Travel Foundation, urged governments at COP27 to “co-ordinate globally and consider what is fair in terms of who pays for this huge investment”.
“We must not exacerbate the existing system, which often fails to yield fair outcomes for host communities,” he added.
Learn more about how the corporate travel industry is planning to become more sustainable by reading BTN Europe's in-depth report on the subject.