Reuters AlertNet Lite - INTERVIEW-Tourism needs radical cure for global warming

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INTERVIEW-Tourism needs radical cure for global warming

02 Oct 2007 16:35:25 GMT
Source: Reuters

By Laura MacInnis DAVOS, Switzerland, Oct 2 (Reuters) - Smart investments may avert a "crash landing" for the global tourist industry, which is dangerously exposed to the effects of climate change, an expert said on Tuesday.

Shardul Agrawala, principal economist for climate change at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, said ski and beach resorts were most vulnerable from global warming, which is causing glaciers to recede and sea levels to rise.

While many tourism operators are trying to adapt to rising temperatures, for instance buying snow-making equipment or building sea walls, he said the industry needed more radical alternatives to preserve jobs, which one lobby group estimated at 230 million worldwide.

"There is a tendency for inertia. The first impulse will be to try to preserve what you're doing currently," Agrawala told Reuters on the sidelines of a United Nations conference on tourism and climate change.

Pointing to the recent experiences of European ski resorts, where poor snow cover has prompted some low-altitude Alpine stations to turn to spas and hiking, he said similar steps were required from other areas now dependent on vulnerable ecology.

This could mean drawing tourists to new areas, encouraging new businesses, or investing in infrastructure and real estate that is appropriate for forecasted changes such as more frequent floods, droughts, storms and heat waves.

Tourist operators in hot areas such as the Mediterranean basin could also focus more on autumn and winter tourism, when heat and wildfire risks would be less acute, Agrawala said.

"If you have those measures in place early on, you can essentially prevent a crash landing," he said. "What winter tourism is showing, in a concentrated time slice, is the choices that will need to be made in other sectors."

Some green critics, however, say a slump in long-distance tourism would do the world good.

The tourist sector accounts for 5 percent of the world's total emissions of carbon dioxide, which scientists have linked to the heating-up of the atmosphere.

Those emissions, dominated by air travel, are expected to surge in coming years as increasing numbers of people take international trips.

In a report presented at the Davos conference, the U.N. Environment Programme, World Meteorological Organisation and World Tourism Organisation said climate change would affect the length and quality of tourist seasons and boost operators' heating, cooling, irrigation, food, water and insurance costs.

Though yearly snowfall levels are expected to vary across regions, the report found that the global ski industry would become more limited as global temperatures rise, with the highest-altitude sites continuing to thrive.

"It isn't doom and gloom for the winter tourism industry. It means a contraction," Daniel Scott, lead author of the study, told the conference participants.

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Last updated:Tue Oct 2 16:35:55 2007