Open letter to UNWTO, UNEP, UNFCCC, and Glasgow tourism climate action signatories

First pub­lished on “Good Tour­ism” Part­ner SUN^x Malta’s web­site, this is an open let­ter from SUN^x to the heads of UNWTO, UNEP, UNFCCC, and the sig­nat­or­ies of the Glas­gow Declar­a­tion: Cli­mate Action in Tourism:

With sup­port from the Gov­ern­ment of Malta, we have set up a glob­al Cli­mate Friendly Travel (CFT) frame­work to sup­port cli­mate resi­li­ence and sus­tain­ab­il­ity in tour­ism com­pan­ies and com­munit­ies any­where in the world. The key ele­ments incor­por­ate engage­ment of Youth and a Registry of Code Red Cli­mate Friendly Travel ambi­tions and action.

»» CLIMATE FRIENDLY TRAVEL REGISTRY ««

SUN^x Malta is one of the charter sig­nat­or­ies to the Glas­gow Declar­a­tion for Tour­ism, and we fully sup­port the goals of the Declar­a­tion. (Although arguing our sec­tor needs to go fur­ther faster with a DASH to Zero if we are to respond adequately to the Code Red Cli­mate Crisis).

We have taken note of the Glas­gow com­mit­ment to report pub­licly what actions are planned and actu­ally taken, as well as to show what pro­gress is being made. We have also noted the strong call for col­lab­or­a­tion as one of the key Glas­gow path­ways to accel­er­at­ing transformation.

It is in this spir­it of col­lab­or­a­tion, we are offer­ing to provide the CFT Registry as a neut­ral vehicle for com­pan­ies and com­munit­ies to list their cli­mate and sus­tain­ab­il­ity action plans, as well as to record pro­gress over time. This will also allow full trans­par­ency for trav­el­lers and residents. 

There is no charge for using the Registry thanks to the sup­port of the Gov­ern­ment of Malta. Sim­il­arly there will be no costs for the Glas­gow Declar­a­tion partners.

»» CLIMATE FRIENDLY TRAVEL REGISTRY ««

The CFT Registry was spe­cific­ally cre­ated to provide an entry into the UNFCCC Glob­al Cli­mate Action Plat­form (GCAP) for tour­ism com­pan­ies and com­munit­ies that are ser­i­ous about cli­mate change and sus­tain­ab­il­ity. At the launch in 2020, togeth­er with the Min­is­ter of Tour­ism of Malta and the Pres­id­ent of WTTC, the then Exec­ut­ive Sec­ret­ary of UNFCC wrote the fol­low­ing to us:

“There is no doubt that the cli­mate chal­lenge is presently out­pa­cing us and requires urgent, glob­al action. Travel & Tour­ism has an enorm­ous role to play and can have, through its actions, pos­it­ive impacts. As the UN Sec­ret­ary-Gen­er­al Guterres has said, it is imper­at­ive that we rebuild the sec­tor in a “safe, equit­able and cli­mate friendly” man­ner. Busi­ness as usu­al is not an option.”

In this con­text, I wel­come the oppor­tun­it­ies that the Cli­mate Friendly Travel Registry offers to Travel & Tour­ism organ­isa­tions to devel­op, register and pro­mote their cli­mate strategies, plans and achieve­ments in sup­port of the goals of the Par­is Agreement.

»» CLIMATE FRIENDLY TRAVEL REGISTRY ««

I look for­ward to see­ing Travel & Tour­ism organ­isa­tions par­ti­cip­at­ing in this sec­tor­al Cli­mate Friendly Travel Registry as well as redoub­ling their efforts to ensure a cli­mate neut­ral and resi­li­ent world by 2050 at the latest.

We sin­cerely believe that this facil­ity can help espe­cially small- and medi­um-sized tour­ism oper­at­ors in the Glob­al South.

We look for­ward to work­ing togeth­er towards prac­tic­al action at COP27 in Egypt.

About SUN^x Malta — Strong Universal Network

SUN^x Malta is a leg­acy for the late Maurice Strong, fath­er of sus­tain­able devel­op­ment. Its goal is to advance Cli­mate Friendly Travel (CFT) ~ low car­bon : SDG linked : Par­is 1.5.

SUN^x has a core part­ner­ship with Malta’s Min­istry of Tour­ism & Con­sumer Pro­tec­tion and Malta Tour­ism Author­ity to advance CFT, to cre­ate a UNFC­CC-linked CFT Registry and to pro­mote CFT Edu­ca­tion. It plans to put in place 100,000 Strong Cli­mate Cham­pi­ons by 2030 across all UN States.