Carbon emissions from tourism growing more than any other industry

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December 12, 2024
2 min read

Carbon emissions from tourism growing more than any other industry

A study led by the University of Queensland has found that greenhouse gas emissions from tourism is growing at over twice the rate from elsewhere in the global economy. Rapid expansion in travel demand has meant that carbon from tourism and its related activities account for 9% of total emissions, Associate Professor Ya-Yen Sun from UQ’s Business School said. The research is published in Nature Communications.

“Without urgent interventions in the global tourism industry, we anticipate annual increases in emissions of 3 to 4% meaning they will double every 20 years,” Dr Sun said. “This does not comply with the Paris Agreement which requires the sector to reduce its emissions by more than 10% annually. The major drivers behind the increasing emissions are slow technology improvements and a rapid growth in demand.”

The study included researchers from UQ, Griffith University, the University of Sydney and Linnaeus University in Sweden. It looked at international and domestic air travel for 175 countries.

The global carbon footprint from tourism, it found, increased from 3.7 gigatonnes (Gt) to 5.2 Gt between 2009 and 2019. The most net emissions were reported from aviation, utilities, and private vehicle use for travel.

The growth rate was 3.5% annually for tourism during the decade. Global emissions as a whole rose by 1.5% for comparison, rising from 50.9 to 59.1 Gt.

The US, China, and India dominated the list, being responsible for 60% of the total increase in tourism emissions over the period that the study looked at.

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