Drivers of global tourism carbon emissions

Abstract

Tourism has a critical role to play in global carbon emissions pathway. This study estimates the global tourism carbon footprint and identifies the key drivers using environmentally extended input-output modelling. The results indicate that global tourism emissions grew 3.5% p.a. between 2009-2019, double that of the worldwide economy, reaching 5.2 Gt CO2-e or 8.8% of total global GHG emissions in 2019. The primary drivers of emissions growth are slow technology efficiency gains (0.3% p.a.) combined with sustained high growth in tourism demand (3.8% p.a. in constant 2009 prices). Tourism emissions are associated with alarming distributional inequalities. Under both destination- and resident-based accounting, the twenty highest-emitting countries contribute three-quarters of the global footprint. The disparity in per-capita tourism emissions between high- and low-income nations now exceeds two orders of magnitude. National tourism decarbonisation strategies will require demand volume thresholds to be defined to align global tourism with the Paris Agreement.