Drivers of global tourism carbon emissions

Ya-Yen Sun (), Futu Faturay, Manfred Lenzen, Stefan Gössling and James Higham
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Ya-Yen Sun: The University of Queensland
Futu Faturay: The University of Queensland
Manfred Lenzen: The University of Sydney
Stefan Gössling: Western Norway Research Institute
James Higham: 170 Kessels Road

Nature Communications, 2024, vol. 15, issue 1, 1-10

Abstract: 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.

Date: 2024
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-54582-7

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