No apologies: ‘eXistential’ climate change and peak GHG emissions 2025 are not advocacy issues. Travel & tourism must act now!

We at SUN^x Malta make no apo­lo­gies for push­ing the exist­en­tial imper­at­ive of achiev­ing peak green­house gas (GHG) emis­sions by 2025. The ‘x’ in our name means ‘eXist­en­tial’. Exist­en­tial is not an advocacy issue.

On World Envir­on­ment Day, June 5, we are again reach­ing out to the lead­er­ship of the travel & tour­ism sec­tor to act on the latest Inter­gov­ern­ment­al Pan­el on Cli­mate Change (IPCC) report (Sixth Assess­ment Report), which called for three clear tar­gets to have any chance of sta­bil­ising glob­al tem­per­at­ures at Par­is 1.5°C by mid-century:

• 2025: Peak GHG emissions
• 2030: 43% reduc­tion in GHG emissions
• 2050: Net Zero GHG emissions

It is a fact that many of the lead­ing travel & tour­ism organ­isa­tions and com­pan­ies have strongly com­mit­ted to the 2030 and 2050 goals. Their com­mit­ments are epi­tom­ised by the Glas­gow Declar­a­tion.

But what happened to the 2025 goal to peak GHG emissions?

Who in the tour­ism sec­tor has even recog­nised the IPCC sci­ence-based call that says any mid- and long-term goals are depend­ent on facing up to the harsh real­it­ies now, and set­ting a 2025 ambi­tion to peak GHG emissions? 

Who wants to even try to ‘bend our trend’?

How many floods, wild­fires, ice melts, and deaths will it take for tour­ism to act now, not in sev­en years’ time?

For sure it is a huge chal­lenge for every tour­ism stake­hold­er. And, yes, avi­ation is a hard-to-abate sector.

But dur­ing COVID we faced up to chal­lenges because there was no alternative. 

Now we have a chance to pre­pare. We still have time to get our act together. 

As Aus­trali­an research­er Dav­id Sprat, author of Cli­mate Code Red, wrote in an art­icle for our latest eXist news­let­ter:

“One after anoth­er politi­cians, busi­ness lead­ers, journ­al­ists and NGO advoc­ates talk about ‘net zero 2050’ and the 1.5°C Par­is goal in the same breath and get away with it. This gross under­es­tim­a­tion of the cli­mate con­di­tion is utterly delu­sion­al, and very few seem to be call­ing it out.”

Maybe it’s time for a first amend­ment to the much-pub­li­cised Glas­gow Declar­a­tion — “Sign on to Plan B: Peak GHG Emis­sions by 2025” — a con­tin­gency at least, and a Pre­cau­tion­ary Prin­ciple life­line at best.

About SUNx 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°C.

SUN^x has a core part­ner­ship with Malta’s Min­istry of Tour­ism & Con­sumer Pro­tec­tion and Malta Tour­ism Author­ity to advance Cli­mate Friendly Travel, to cre­ate a UNFC­CC-linked CFT Registry, and to pro­mote CFT Education. 

By 2030, SUN^x plans to put in place 100,000 Strong Cli­mate Cham­pi­ons across all UN States via a net­work of Strong Cli­mate Friendly Travel Chapters.

Don’t miss oth­er “Good Tour­ism” Part­ner mes­sages from SUNx

Fea­tured image (top of post): Graph­ic sup­plied by SUN^x. Fire back­ground by Hans (CC0) via Pixabay.