As world leaders gather in Glasgow for COP26 to discuss concrete actions to solve the climate crises, the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) has launched a Net Zero Roadmap.

The organisation sees the document as a guide for global tourism sector in its battle against the climate crisis.

WTTC developed the roadmap in collaboration with the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and Accenture.

The roadmap provides concrete guidelines and recommendations to help guide tourism businesses on their journey towards net zero.

By providing milestones for meaningful climate action and emissions reduction for different industries within the sector, the roadmap sets out the challenges ahead and how the tourism sector can decarbonise and reach net zero by 2050.

This report shows how the sector is greatly impacted by climate change as it affects destinations around the world, but as with many other sectors, it is also responsible for an estimated eight-to-ten per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions (GHG).

The sector therefore has a key role to play in fighting climate change, which will require heightened ambitions and differentiated decarbonisation approaches, as outlined in the roadmap.

Julia Simpson, WTTC chief executive, said: “I am delighted to announce our pioneering Net Zero Roadmap for tourism.

“It helps travel industries reach individual targets to reduce our carbon footprint.

“Many destinations are affected by the impacts of climate change with rising sea levels, deforestation and the loss of animal and plant species.

“Communities that rely on tourism are first in line to see the impact and wanting to do something about it.”

The roadmap presents a new target framework with decarbonisation corridors, which groups tourism businesses into three clusters, depending on their emission profiles and the difficulty of abating their GHG emissions.

Certain industries may achieve net zero before 2050 if more ambitious targets are set and different decarbonisation approaches are followed.

More Information

Take a look at the document here.