Abstract
Global climate change represents a grand challenge for society, one that is increasingly influencing tourism sector investment, planning, operations, and demand. The paper provides an overview of the core challenges climate change poses to sustainable tourism, key knowledge gaps, and the state of preparedness in the tourism sector. As we begin what is widely considered a decisive climate decade, low sectoral preparedness should be highly disconcerting for the tourism community. Put bluntly, what we have done for the past 30 years has not prepared the sector for the next 30 years of accelerating climate change impacts and the transformation to a decarbonized global economy. The transition from two decades of awareness raising and ambition setting to a decade of determined collective response has massive knowledge requirements and necessitates broad sectoral commitments to: (1) improved communications and knowledge mobilization, (2) increased research capacity and interdisciplinary collaboration, and (3) strategic policy and planning engagement. We in the tourism and sustainability communities must answer this clarion call to shape the future of tourism in a decarbonized and post +3 °C world, for there can be no sustainable tourism if we fail on climate change.
Highlights
The COVID-19 pandemic brought global tourism to a sudden and unprecedented cessation as travel restrictions and stay-at-home orders expanded rapidly in late March2020
While some are skeptical that meaningful transition toward sustainability will emerge given the almost exclusive industry focus on returning to business as pre-pandemic as rapidly as possible [8], other scholars and sector observers view the pandemic crisis as a critical moment for reflection on how the post-pandemic recovery could serve as a catalyst for responsible and sustainable tourism transformation [7,9]
Regardless of how recovery unfolds, the devastating tragedy the COVID-19 pandemic has wrought upon the lives and livelihoods of millions and the immense economic damage to businesses and much of the tourism sector worldwide offers important lessons for society
Summary
The most recent UNEP 2020 Emissions Gap Report [23] estimates that if all emission reduction pledges within the Paris Agreement were achieved, the world would be on course for approximately a 3.2–3.5 ◦ C temperature increase in the late 21st century. Little in society would remain unaffected as coastlines and other parts of the planet would be transformed, extinction risks greatly increased, regional water and food insecurity intensified, hundreds of millions of people displaced, and global economic growth diminished [14,18] Such outcomes are demonstrably incompatible with progress on sustainable development [37]. Regardless of whether society achieves a +2 ◦ C world through unprecedented rapid and deep decarbonization or the more extensive impacts of a post +3 ◦ C climate disrupted world are realized, the grand challenge of climate change will transform global tourism over the three decades and beyond.
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