Factsheet: Responsible travel and global warming

Global warming poses a severe threat to those things that responsible travellers hold most dear - the welfare of local communities around the world and the conservation of the earth's natural and cultural heritage.

Nearly every activity of every person and every company contributes directly to carbon dioxide emissions and hence to global warming.   Flying is no exception in this regard. 

Figures vary but recent research shows that aviation accounts for approximately 2.6% of global CO2 emissions (The Stern Report) or 5.6% of CO2 emissions from the UK .  It is thought to be more damaging than other sources of emission (possibly by a factor of two) because it is emitted at altitude. 

Based on these figures, aviation is far from being the biggest source of emissions in our lives. For example, the clothes that we wear account for more CO2 per average person than flying  (The Carbon Trust).   However the principal area of concern around aviation is that it is the fastest growing of all contributions to global warming.  

We believe each person, each business and each Government around the world needs to reduce its total emissions each year.  In the UK , our target is to reduce emissions from 1990 levels by 60% by 2050.  There are hundreds of different ways we can do this.  For example, insulating your loft, using low energy light bulbs and turning down the thermostat  by one degree – these are just for starters .  Some of these changes will save far more carbon than cutting out a flight (see an example here).  In addition, where aviation is concerned, we believe the world needs to fly less each year, rather than more as we have been.         

Although planes are getting greener, unlike in other industries where alternative energies such as solar or wind are being used, there is currently no viable alternative fuel to kerosene in the aviation industry.  

We believe that strong economies are needed in order to invest in the research, development and implementation of greener technologies globally and that responsible tourism positively contributes to these developments.  Indeed, tourism is one of the world's largest industries and directly or indirectly employs one in eight people globally (World Tourism Organisation).   Without a global tourism industry Governments would have significantly less funds to invest in lower carbon technologies.  In addtion, responsible tourism is an effective tool for pverty reduction because:

• Tourism is growing fastest in developing countries
• Responsible tourism is based around the assets of local people - their culture and environments 
• After agriculture , tourism exhibits the highest linkages of any industry to local economies
• Responsible tourism tends to offers opportunities to the marginalised
• Unlike most other sectors tourism has no export tariffs

More on responsible tourism's contribution to poverty reduction. Responsible tourism also contributes to the conservation of the world's natural and cultural heritage (including CO2 absorbing forestry) as it directly funds conservation; puts a value on cultural and natural heritage; and creates economic benefits for local people to enable able to be able afford to conserve it.

The need for more research…

Little is understood about the net CO2 impact of our holidays.  For example, by looking at the entire lifecycle of a range of products rather than the flight alone from the country of origin to the UK, The Carbon Trust’s carbon labelling initiative recently found that from the seed to the distribution centre, Kenyan roses that are sold in the UK, have produced less carbon by the time they reach the shops than those grown in Holland. In addition, they found that New Zealand lamb is less carbon intensive than UK lamb.

To date, there has been little or no similar investigation into the potential carbon savings that may result from leaving the energy-intensive UK behind for a couple of weeks, getting back to nature and switching off (quite literally), on a low energy consuming holiday.  responsibletravel.com has called on the UK Government to investigate the net CO2 impact of different genres of holidays.  Read more here.

Call to action for the future of tourism…
We strongly believe that we need to fly less. We also believe that, when we do fly, we need to ensure that we book responsible holidays that make efforts to reduce their CO2 impacts in destinations, and increase the benefits to local people and conservation.   Having reducing our emissions as far as possible, we should offset the rest - something that we have been offering to customers since early 2001. 
 
The only way to ensure that the world flies less is for the price of flying to go up.  This can be achieved either through emissions trading or taxation (kerosene is the only untaxed fuel in the world - although the Air Passenger Duty (APD) is a form of tax ).   The advantage of emissions trading over tax is that it is seen to directly fund global carbon reduction schemes.  We'd like to ensure that developing countries who are far more highly dependent on tourism than developed countries are not taxed out of the market.      

responsibletravel.com is calling on the UK  Government to:

• Increase the cost of flying through either emission trading schemes or taxation to a level sufficient to start reducing the number of flights taken annually
• Ensure any tax revenues are transparently hypothecated to low carbon initiatives
• Offer incentives to encourage airlines to be greener and create more fuel efficient planes
• Only expand airport capacity when there is a real need based on current customer numbers

responsibletravel.com is also calling on travellers to make more responsible travel choices:

• Reduce the number of flights you take each year. Take fewer and longer holidays, or take the train to European destinations and consider UK based eco-holidays
• Take fewer short breaks by air. Shorter flights and multiple stop-overs are more polluting per passenger mile than longer flights as take-off and landings generate a significant part of the total emissions per flight. Try to take fewer, longer holidays instead
• Try and avoid internal flights within a destination - use local public transport where possible or go on foot or by bike
• If you do fly, opt for a responsible holiday that respects, benefits and helps to conserve local communities, customs and environments
• Offset the carbon emissions of your flight.  Just click on our Air Travel Calculator to find out how much your flight adds to global warming and how little it costs to offset.
• Demand that our politicians take action (see above) – write to your local MP and take an active interest in the issues
• Make other changes in your day-to-day life to reduce your overall carbon emissions