Why sustainable tourism must address climate change

Abstract

This opinion piece examines Weaver's thesis that sustainable tourism's current expanding engagement with climate change may not necessarily be conducive to the interests of tourism sustainability. It critically examines and responds to the seven interrelated issues presented by Weaver to support that opinion. This paper dispels some common climate science myths that continue to hamper scientific progress and obfuscate debate over climate change policy responses and specifically refutes recent claims of compromised and inaccurate research findings. It is argued that climate change studies reveal a deficiency in past conceptualizations of sustainable tourism that focused almost exclusively on destination scale issues and highlight the need to properly account for the environmental and social impacts of tourism's travel phase. Addressing climate change is considered a prerequisite to sustainable development and therefore germane to advancing sustainable tourism research. Tourism is currently considered among the economic sectors least prepared for the risks and opportunities posed by climate change and is only now developing the capacity to advance knowledge necessary to inform business, communities and government about the issues and potential ways forward. Any retreat from engagement with climate change issues by the tourism industry or its researchers would be to their substantial detriment.

为什么可持续性旅游必须考虑到气候变化

该文章讨论了Weaver 在2011年的文章中指出的可持续性旅游现在与气候变化不断增长的联系并没有引起适当增长的研究上的兴趣。该文章批判地回应了由Weaver提出的七大相关因素。这打消了一些普遍的气候科学中存在的虚构想法。因为这些想法阻碍了科学化的进程, 混淆了关于气候变化政策回应的辩论, 并特别是为最近出现的一些妥协性并 不恰当的研究发现进行反驳。文章强调气候变化的研究显示了过去对可持续性旅游概念化的不足。这种不足主要是以往的研究过分着重看目的地发展规模的问题, 和由此引发的环境社会影响。气候变化的问题可以被认为可持续性发展的重要前提, 也因此作为可持续性旅游研究的重要课题。旅游, 在所有的经济产业中, 被认为是对气候变化带来的威胁和机遇准备最不足的。旅游现在才开始发展鼓励相关先进知识, 为商业, 社区, 政府找到可能的对策。旅游业或是旅游研究者若对气候变化问题上有任何松懈都会造成重大的损失。

Keywords:

• climate change
• environment
• sustainable tourism
• tourism impacts
• policy-making

Keywords:

• 气候变化
• 环境
• 可持续性旅游
• 旅游影响
• 政策制定

Notes

1. A similar analysis of four leading climate change journals (Climatic Change, Climate Policy, Global Environmental Change, Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies to Global Change) found tourism-focused papers represented 0.8% of papers published in the same timeframe.

2. See also Buckley, 2008, Moreno & Becken, 2009, and Uyarra et al., 2005.

3. There are 20 members and associate members of the Caribbean Community (www.caricom.org).

4. Another 15 PhDs on various aspects of climate change and tourism are known to be ongoing in nine different countries, which will further improve the research capacity in this field.

5. Those interested in critiques of media portrayals of “climategate” and the IPCC errors are referred to insightful websites such as RealClimate.com or deSmog.com.

6. There is no evidence that mitigation policies for international aviation, as currently proposed, would have any substantial impact on tourism arrivals through 2020 (Gössling, Peeters, & Scott, 2008; Mayor & Tol, 2007; Pentelow & Scott, 2010).