COP29 is over – so after eleven days of discussions and negotiations involving 65,000 delegates from around the world, all of which concluded on Friday last week, what was in it for tourism? And are we any closer to decarbonising tourism?
Transcript
UN Climate Change Conferences take place every year. They are the world’s only multilateral decision-making forum on climate change, bringing together enormous delegations from almost every country in the world. COP 29 was this year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference which took place this year in Baku, Azerbaijan from 11-22 November 2024.
COP is the key forum where countries hopefully come together to agree on actions to address the climate crisis. The primary objective is limiting global temperature rise to +1.5 degrees Celsius. Secondary objectives including helping vulnerable communities adapt to the effects of climate change, and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.
Sometimes COP will result in new agreements and treaties, often with the goal of refining targets, and agreeing rules or forming binding treaties such as the Kyoto Protocol and Paris Agreement. Among the key priorities of COP29 were securing a new goal on climate finance, ensuring every country has the means to take much stronger climate action, slashing greenhouse gas emissions and building resilient communities.
COP29 got off to the worst possible start. The president of the host country Azerbaijan told the UN climate conference that oil and gas are a “gift of God”, criticising “Western fake news” reporting on the country’s emissions. He said that countries “should not be blamed” for having fossil fuel reserves and explained plans for Azerbaijan to expand gas production by up to a third over the next decade. Concerns were expressed that Azerbaijani officials were using COP29 to boost investment in the country’s national oil and gas company.
Shortly afterwards, UN chief António Guterres told the conference that doubling down on the use of fossil fuels was “absurd”. He said the “clean energy revolution” had arrived and that no government could stop it.
This point was backed up by UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer who pledged to continue finding reductions in emissions. He promised that the UK will pursue an 81% decrease in emissions by 2035 and called upon other countries to match the new target. He said that quote “Make no mistake, the race is on for the clean energy jobs of the future, the economy of tomorrow, and I don’t want to be in the middle of the pack – I want to get ahead of the game”.
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So what about tourism? COP29 did represent an important milestone for tourism. For the first time in the history of COP, COP29 included a thematic day on tourism which took place near the end of the conference on 20th November.
On the Tourism Day public and private sector leaders recognized the significant impact of climate change on the tourism sector and its contribution to greenhouse gas emissions. They also stated tourism’s potential to actively foster climate adaptation and regeneration strategies. Over 700 delegates participated in the Tourism Day events.
It was noted at the start of the thematic day on tourism that global tourism has recovered from the shock of COVID-19 and that the tourism sector is now taking higher responsibility for its social and environmental impacts. This required moving away from a business-as-usual approach which would otherwise lead to tourism-related emissions increasing by at least by 25% by 2030. As part of COP29’s Tourism Day, several objectives were outlined:
Firstly in terms of policy change, the launch of the Baku Declaration on Enhanced Climate Action in Tourism was presented as a call to action to explore the inclusion of national tourism administrations’ contributions, as applicable, to developing and achieving the next set of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to the Paris Agreement. It also called for a commitment to enhance the integration of climate action in tourism policies.
Secondly sectoral engagement was addressed through a commitment to strengthening the Glasgow Declaration on Climate Action in Tourism as a voluntary measure to support national climate goals, by increasing the number of national tourism organizations and tourism stakeholders making commitments to implement integrated climate mitigation and adaptation approaches.
Third, a commitment to a science-based approach was outlined to position the UN Statistical Framework for Measuring the Sustainability of Tourism (MST) as the key tool to measure national tourism emissions.
And fourthly in terms of institutionalization, the launch of a global coordination and partnership mechanism for enhanced climate action in tourism across the UN System and key stakeholders. This objective was intended to ensure coherence, alignment and greater impact of initiatives.
The thematic Day on Tourism presented an opportunity for the tourism sector to showcase its critical role and advancements in addressing climate change. It included some key moments. Most notably, from our point of view, was the presentation titled ‘Drivers of Tourism Emissions: Scientific Research on GHG emissions from Tourism Operations’ which was delivered by Ya-Yen Sun from the University of Queensland.
There followed a high-level roundtable panel discussion on emissions measurement. Chaired by Prof. Xavier Font from the University of Surrey, this was an opportunity to put forward measurements of the global tourism carbon footprint as well as recent and likely future emissions trajectories.
Two very contrasting scenarios were put forward. First, Ya-Yen reporting on the global tourism emissions research that she has led, using the MST framework that has been endorsed by the United Nations as the most rigorous and comprehensive framework available. She reported tourism’s contribution of 8.8% to total global emissions in 2019, increasing at a rate of 3.5% per annum, and therefore set to double over the next 20 years.
There followed a presentation by the WTTC that put forward an entirely different set of results, suggesting 6.5% of total global emissions in 2023 – down from 7.8% in 2019. The WTTC used these figures, based on less clear or transparent methods and data, as the basis of a grand claim that tourism has successfully “decoupled growth from emissions”.
So who is right? Needless to say, such starkly contrasting figures can’t both be right.
Following this panel session, both the UN Tourism Secretary–General, and UNEP Executive Director underlined the need for a science-based approach. Both made direct reference to quote “advanced new research to be further adapted from the University of Queensland indicating that tourism represents 8.8% of global emissions, including direct and indirect emissions”. This was an outstanding outcome from COP29. All credit to Ya-Yen for travelling to Baku, presenting and discussing these findings, and earning the endorsement of UN Tourism.
The inclusion of “Climate Action in Tourism” in the UN Climate Change COP29 Action Agenda for the first time represented a milestone for tourism. At COP29 we have achieved today an historic milestone by being included in the UN Climate Change Conference Action Agenda for the first time”. So said the Executive Director if UN Tourism.
On the back of these high-level discussions, 52 governments signed the COP29 Declaration for Enhanced Climate Action in Tourism. The countries that signed the declaration pledged to recognise the need to address tourism when drafting climate plans, most notably in their Nationally Determined Contributions. The next update of NDCs, in which governments describe policies to reduce emissions that cause global warming, are due in February.
The declaration was accompanied by a number of other initiatives, such as a framework presented by hotel industry body World Sustainable Hospitality Alliance, aimed at measuring and reporting data such as greenhouse gas emissions, water consumption, waste and energy usage across the sector. The group represents 55,000 hotels totalling more than 7 million rooms including Accor, Hilton and Marriott
The Baku Declaration was hailed as a major achievement of the climate summit in Azerbaijan. And no doubt it was. No doubt it was the subject of long nights of discussion and negotiation for things to be included, things to be excluded, and wording to be changed. It no doubt tested the diplomacy and negotiation skills of UN Tourism. And it resulted in a successful outcome – may countries sighted the declaration and if that is a measure of success – then it was successful.
But of course the ultimate measure of success is action to reduce emissions, and declarations do not reduce emissions, they only express a commitment to certain actions. Unfortunately, we know from past experience that national delegates may feel a sense of obligation to sign to many COP initiatives but that does not necessarily translate into the hard and fast commitments of governments at home.
And this was an easy one to sign given that any potentially contentious principles had been earlier negotiated out of the text. There are so many caveats. The wording is weak. Stating that quote “We intend where applicable and appropriate to consider effective mitigation measures…” is all but meaningless. We have been saying this for ever and it has got us nowhere. If you read the declaration you find that it actually commits signatories to nothing of any consequence.
Furthermore what is not in the declaration is just as noteworthy that what is. We know the urgency of climate justice – that the big tourism emitters must mitigate urgently and that climate actions must protect the interests of the most vulnerable destinations and communities. Countries that are producing disproportionately high emissions must take hard and fast actions to reduce their emissions – but they aren’t. They continue to delay action through negotiating in their own economic interests and avoiding any sense of global responsibility or citizenship.
This surely comes as no surprise. National interest will always prevail. But it is scarcely believable that the declaration makes no reference whatsoever to climate justice and tourism. Any such statements are not in the interests of the powerful economies. They have sway. So there is no mention of justice despite the urgency and despite climate finance and justice for the lowest emitters and most vulnerable being a central theme of COP29.
And ultimately there have been many declarations before and none have had any discernible impact in terms of climate action. It is a case of more words, when what is urgently needed is more action. It is hard to escape the impression that nothing meaningful will happen now that COP29 has concluded, and we will be in the same situation only progressively worse when COP30 rolls around in year’s time.
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At the end of the conferenceUN Secretary General Guterres decried “doubling down on fossil fuels”. “The sound you hear is the ticking clock,” he said. “We are in the final countdown to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius and time is not on our side. He called 2024 a “masterclass in climate destruction” with disasters being “supercharged by human-made climate change”. Once again, in an echo of previous years, the UN’s World Meteorological Organization said that 2024 is on track to be the world’s warmest year on record.
Guterres said “a new finance goal” was needed, with wealthiest countries paying the most. “The largest emitters have the greatest capacities and greatest responsibilities,” he said. “Developing countries must not leave Baku empty-handed.” But this couldn’t be agreed either. This was always going to be unlikely even for the most optimistic observers, with leaders of the world’s biggest carbon polluters being absent from Baku, including Biden, Macron and Modi. More impasse.
As a footnote, there was one big winner. Demand for flights in and out of Baku was so high around COP29 that airlines hiked their seat prices to maximise profits. Such is capitalism – and the realities of supply and demand economics. High carbon airlines must have been rubbing their hands together with glee as COP delegates flooded into Baku, paying top dollar for flights, in order to try to advance the fight against climate change. How ironic.
To conclude, there were some small wins at COP29 – most notably the commitment of UN Tourism and UNEP to the 8.8% figure and the reality that global tourism carbon emissions continue on an upward growth trajectory – 3.5% per annum. Well done to Ya-Yen for achieving this outcome – and to Xavier Font for his expert chairing of the panel on emission measurement, which he ensured was transparent and outcome focussed. These are notable successes. Well done to UN Tourism for endorsing the MST framework and the 8.8% figure, which we hope will create action pathways in the months ahead.
But ultimately tourism continued to be poorly served in Baku with little negotiating power, little mention of tourism in relation to NDCs, no stated tourism targets or hard commitments and ultimately little of consequence in terms of binding outcomes. These conferences are so crippled by politics and diplomacy. Despite the small wins – tourism emissions mitigation remains off-target and it is too optimistic to think that the Baku Declaration will make any meaningful difference.
