Experts to unveil Tourism Panel on Climate Change (TPCC) at COP27

• Lead­ing experts of the new Tour­ism Pan­el on Cli­mate Change (TPCC) will present its ‘Found­a­tion Frame­work’ dur­ing COP27 in Egypt.
• Cre­ated by the Sus­tain­able Tour­ism Glob­al Cen­ter, TPCC will provide object­ive met­rics to accel­er­ate glob­al cli­mate action in travel & tourism.

NOVEMBER 7, 2022, SHARM EL-SHEIKH: The Exec­ut­ive Board of the new Tour­ism Pan­el on Cli­mate Change (TPCC) will present their ‘Found­a­tion Frame­work’, Novem­ber 10, dur­ing the UN Cli­mate Change Con­fer­ence (COP27) in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt. 

The Tour­ism Pan­el on Cli­mate Change (TPCC) is an inde­pend­ent and impar­tial ini­ti­at­ive designed to sup­port tourism’s trans­ition to net-zero emis­sions and cli­mate-resi­li­ent tour­ism development.

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. 

The TPCC will deliver: 

• 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. 
• A series of lead­ing edge thought pieces — Hori­zon Papers — on crit­ic­al issues on the inter­sect between cli­mate change and tour­ism mit­ig­a­tion and adaptation.

More inform­a­tion about these out­puts, the 60+ tour­ism and cli­mate change experts, as well as the vis­ion, mis­sion, and mod­us operandi of the TPCC will be released when Pro­fess­ors Daniel Scott, Susanne Beck­en, and Geof­frey Lip­man — long-time cli­mate and sus­tain­ab­il­ity lead­ers — present the TPCC’s Found­a­tion Frame­work in a COP27 side event on 10 November. 

TPCC’s three-mem­ber Exec­ut­ive 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 | Web­site: www.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 organizations.