Climate change is real. How do we respond?
The first four points in the Tourism Declares Climate Emergency declaration are personal undertakings or organisational commitments to plan and to change and to share and to collaborate in relation to a signatory’s declaration of climate emergency. All power to them!
However the fifth point in the declaration is “an unconscionable abdication of responsibility and a lack of consideration for fellow tourism stakeholders”, according to your correspondent in a recent post about tourism and the reality of climate change.
Why the harsh description? Because the fifth compels signatories to call for unspecified regulatory intervention in the air travel sector, which is likely to also impact aviation-dependent destinations. And “system change across the industry”, whatever that means, presumably has consequences for everyone.
In case “unconscionable abdication of responsibility and a lack of consideration for fellow tourism stakeholders” was unfair, and to better understand what “system change” and “urgent regulatory action” meant to signatories when they declared, your correspondent reached out via LinkedIn to the bosses of several of the signatory organisations as well as a few of the individuals ... Read their responses at https://goodtourismblog.com/2020/03/signatories-to-tourism-declares-climate-emergency-on-system-change-regulatory-action/