On aviation emissions & financial risk: Tourism Panel on Climate Change (TPCC) publishes first Horizon Papers

The Tour­ism Pan­el on Cli­mate Change (TPCC) has pub­lished its first ‘Hori­zon Papers’; one on the top­ic of redu­cing aviation’s green­house gas emis­sions (mit­ig­a­tion), anoth­er on the fin­an­cial resi­li­ence of tour­ism organ­isa­tions affected by cli­mate change (adapt­a­tion).

TPCC’s Hori­zon Papers are lead­ing-edge think pieces to stim­u­late crit­ic­al exchanges at the inter­sec­tion of cli­mate change and tour­ism. They are com­mis­sioned from recog­nised experts in the field and are peer-reviewed. 

Down­load the Hori­zon Papers in full from TPCC.info/downloads along with the TPCC’s ‘Found­a­tion Frame­work’ that its Exec­ut­ive Board presen­ted at the UN Cli­mate Change Con­fer­ence (COP27) in Egypt, Novem­ber 10.

The TPCC is an inde­pend­ent and impar­tial ini­ti­at­ive designed to sup­port tourism’s trans­ition to net-zero emis­sions and cli­mate-resi­li­ent tour­ism devel­op­ment. It was cre­ated by the Saudi Ara­bia-led Sus­tain­able Tour­ism Glob­al Cen­ter (STGC).

TPCC’s first two Hori­zon Papers are:

‘Sustainable Tourism’s Achilles’ Heel: Aviation Emissions’

Chris Lyle, Founder of Air Trans­port Eco­nom­ics, reviews recent major stud­ies on the feas­ib­il­ity, con­tri­bu­tion, and related policy frame­works of meas­ures that seek to mit­ig­ate air transport’s green­house gas emissions. 

His Hori­zon Paper addresses the col­lect­ive lim­ited capa­city of those meas­ures to achieve the Par­is Agree­ment goals; con­siders “paths for­ward and ‘deep dives’” into crit­ic­al aspects of avi­ation emis­sions mit­ig­a­tion; and lays out some key points of con­sid­er­a­tion for poli­cy­makers. The author notes that the game-chan­ging driver will be new air­craft power sources, par­tic­u­larly sus­tain­able avi­ation fuel (SAF).

Lyle con­cludes that new think­ing is urgently required, sug­gest­ing that the tour­ism sec­tor needs to “get more dir­ectly involved” in the decar­bon­isa­tion of avi­ation lest the industry becomes “a dis­tressed or even stran­ded asset”.

‘The Imperative for Advancing Climate Risk Assessment in Tourism’

Bijan Khazai and his col­leagues at Risk­lay­er GmbH review the G20’s Task Force on Cli­mate-related Fin­an­cial Dis­clos­ures (TCFD).

The authors note that increas­ing num­bers of investors are ask­ing tour­ism organ­isa­tions about the implic­a­tions of cli­mate change on their long-term fin­an­cial per­form­ance, and sug­gest that this will only intensi­fy going forward.

Their Hori­zon Paper looks at main­stream cli­mate risk assess­ment decision sup­port tools in tour­ism (“largely ill-suited”) and pro­poses a fin­an­cial risk dis­clos­ure tool that could be use­ful for the tour­ism sec­tor in TCFD compliance.

Both Hori­zon Papers can be down­loaded in full from TPCC.info/downloads along with TPCC’s ‘Found­a­tion Framework’.

TPCC unveiled at COP27

The Exec­ut­ive Board of the TPCC presen­ted their ‘Found­a­tion Frame­work’, Novem­ber 10, dur­ing the UN Cli­mate Change Con­fer­ence (COP27) in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt. 

Cre­ated by the Saudi Ara­bia-led Sus­tain­able Tour­ism Glob­al Cen­ter (STGC) — the world’s first multi-coun­try, multi-stake­hold­er glob­al coali­tion to drive the travel & tour­ism sector’s trans­ition to net zero — the TPCC rep­res­ents a new era of glob­al col­lab­or­a­tion across aca­demia, busi­ness, and civil society. 

Inspired by the Inter­gov­ern­ment­al Pan­el on Cli­mate Change (IPCC), the TPCC’s mis­sion is “to inform and rap­idly advance sci­ence-based cli­mate action across the glob­al tour­ism sys­tem in sup­port of the goals of the Par­is Cli­mate Agreement”.

The solu­tions-ori­ented TPCC brings togeth­er more than 60 lead­ing experts in tour­ism and sus­tain­ab­il­ity from more than 30 coun­tries to sys­tem­at­ic­ally review, ana­lyse, and dis­til cli­mate change-related sci­ence to sup­port and accel­er­ate cli­mate action through­out the travel & tour­ism sector. 

In addi­tion to com­mis­sion­ing, cur­at­ing, and pub­lish­ing ‘Hori­zon Papers’, the TPCC is also charged with delivering:

• The first Sci­ence Assess­ment of tour­ism and cli­mate change-rel­ev­ant know­ledge in more than 15 years on emis­sion trends, cli­mate impacts, and solu­tions for mit­ig­a­tion and adapt­a­tion to sup­port cli­mate-resi­li­ent tour­ism devel­op­ment glob­ally, region­ally, and nationally. 
• A cli­mate action Stock Take, using a new set of peer-reviewed and open-source indic­at­ors that track key con­nec­tions between cli­mate change and tour­ism, includ­ing pro­gress on sec­tor com­mit­ments in sup­port of Par­is Agree­ment goals. 

Co-ordin­at­ing the TPCC’s activ­it­ies is a three-mem­ber Exec­ut­ive Board, which has wide-ran­ging expert­ise at the inter­sec­tion of tour­ism, cli­mate change, and sustainability.

• Pro­fess­or Daniel Scott — Pro­fess­or and Research Chair in Cli­mate & Soci­ety, Uni­ver­sity of Water­loo (Canada); Con­trib­ut­ing author and review­er for the Third, Fourth and Fifth IPCC Assess­ment Reports and Spe­cial Report on 1.5°
• Pro­fess­or Susanne Beck­en — Pro­fess­or of Sus­tain­able Tour­ism, Grif­fith Uni­ver­sity (Aus­tralia) and the Uni­ver­sity of Sur­rey (UK); Win­ner of UNWTO’s Ulysses Prize; Con­trib­ut­ing author to the Fourth and Fifth IPCC Assess­ment Reports 
• Pro­fess­or Geof­frey Lip­man — Envoy for STGC; former Assist­ant Sec­ret­ary Gen­er­al UNWTO; former Exec­ut­ive Dir­ect­or IATA; cur­rent Pres­id­ent SUNx Malta; Co-author of books on Green Growth & Trav­el­ism & EIU Stud­ies on Air Transport.

About the Tourism Panel on Climate Change (TPCC)

The Tour­ism Pan­el on Cli­mate Change (TPCC) is a neut­ral body of more than 60 tour­ism and cli­mate sci­ent­ists and experts who will provide a cur­rent-state assess­ment of the sec­tor and object­ive met­rics to pub­lic and private sec­tor decision makers world­wide. It will pro­duce reg­u­lar assess­ments in line with the UNFCCC COP pro­grams and the Inter­gov­ern­ment­al Pan­el on Cli­mate Change. 

Con­tact: Secretariat@TPCC.info

About the Sustainable Tourism Global Center (STGC)

The Sus­tain­able Tour­ism Glob­al Cen­ter (STGC) is the world’s first multi-coun­try, multi-stake­hold­er glob­al coali­tion that will lead, accel­er­ate, and track the tour­ism industry’s trans­ition to net-zero emis­sions, as well as drive action to pro­tect nature and sup­port com­munit­ies. It will enable the trans­ition while deliv­er­ing know­ledge, tools, fin­an­cing mech­an­isms and innov­a­tion stim­u­la­tion into the tour­ism sector.

The STGC was announced by His Roy­al High­ness the Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Sal­man dur­ing the Saudi Green Ini­ti­at­ive in Octo­ber 2021 in Riy­adh, Saudi Ara­bia. His Excel­lency Ahmed Al Khateeb, Min­is­ter of Tour­ism for Saudi Ara­bia then led a pan­el dis­cus­sion dur­ing COP26 (Novem­ber 2021) in Glas­gow, United King­dom, to elab­or­ate on how the Cen­ter will deliv­er on its man­date with found­ing coun­try rep­res­ent­at­ives and experts from part­ner inter­na­tion­al organisations.