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Tourism and greenhouse gas emissions

January 17, 2025 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Tourism is a major contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for about 9% of the global total. Over the past 15 years, its emissions have grown more than twice as fast as those of the rest of the global economy.

Unless the tourism industry finds ways to slow down its growing emissions, those emissions will continue to increase by 3 to 4% each year, meaning that they will double every 20 years. The major drivers behind tourism’s growing emissions have been slow improvements in tourism-related technologies coupled with the rapid growth in demand.

Transportation is tourism’s main source of greenhouse gas emissions. Planes and cars generate the most carbon dioxide but there are contributions from tour buses, boat rides, ferries, and trains as well. The increasing demand for international travel has been the largest contributor to the growth of tourism-related emissions. But just as people’s homes generate emissions from energy use, so do hotels and other lodging used on vacations.

The United States, China, and India are responsible for 60% of the total increase in tourism’s carbon footprint. Generally speaking, it is the world’s wealthiest nations that have the most tourists exploring the world.

Researchers from Australia’s University of Queensland recommended several measures to slow the growth of tourism’s carbon emissions. These include reducing long-haul flights, imposing carbon dioxide taxes, setting carbon budgets, and the use of alternative transportation fuels. At the local level, tourism businesses making use of renewable energy sources and electric vehicles would help.

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Tourism leads the pack in growing carbon emissions

Photo, posted September 14, 2014, courtesy of Gary Campbell-Hall via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Banning Short Plane Flights | Earth Wise

May 20, 2021 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Almost everything we do ultimately results in greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere and therefore has an impact on the climate. But some activities have much more impact than others. The aviation industry is responsible for about 5% of global warming.

This doesn’t seem like that large a contribution, but only a very small percentage of the world’s population flies frequently and even in richer countries, only around half the population flew in any given year (at least before the pandemic.)

Flying is generally the only practical option for most long-haul trips and unless people give up on seeing the world or conducting global business in person, they are not going to give up taking air trips.

But shorter flights are a different story. If you are planning to take a reasonably short trip in France, a plane will soon no longer be an option. The French government says that flights will be banned on any route where the trip could be made on a train in 2.5 hours or less. The driving force is the reduction of CO2 emissions. A plane trip emits an average of 77 times more CO2 per passenger than taking a train on the same route.

The Netherlands and Belgium are also considering bans on short-haul flights and Austrian Airlines recently replaced its Vienna-to-Salzburg flights with train service.

Advocates of the flight bans say that not only does taking the train significantly reduce a traveler’s carbon footprint, but it can be cheaper and actually faster than a plane when factoring in the time spent getting to airports, standing in security lines, getting on and off planes, and so on. Europe’s extensive train system makes this approach broadly practical. Unfortunately, here in the U.S., it is not quite that easy.

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France Will Ban Short Flights That Could Be Replaced By a Train Trip

Photo, posted December 17, 2016, courtesy of Dylan Agbagni via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Reduced Air Travel And Weather Forecasts | Earth Wise

December 16, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

There have been countless stories about the major and minor changes in the world caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. A few of those changes, such as reductions in pollution and traffic, have been positive. Most have been decidedly negative.

One of the stranger things that has happened is that the pandemic has affected the quality of weather forecasting by sharply reducing the amount of atmospheric data routinely collected by commercial airliners.

It turns out that atmospheric observations from passenger and cargo flights are among the most important data used in weather forecasting models. These observations are made by instruments aboard thousands of airliners, mostly based in North America and Europe. The observation program has been in place for decades. The data is transmitted in real time to forecasting organizations around the world, including the National Weather Service. About 40 airlines participate in the program, which has equipment aboard about 3,500 aircraft. Here in the US, Delta, United, American, and Southwest Airlines participate, as do UPS and FedEx.

During the first few months of the pandemic, air traffic declined by 75% or more worldwide. As a result, atmospheric observations dropped by the same percentage. A government research study showed that when weather forecasting models receive less data on temperature, wind, and humidity from aircraft, the accuracy of forecasts was reduced.

The amount of data from aircraft has increased in recent months as air travel has picked up to roughly 50% of pre-pandemic levels. So, the observation program is on the mend. Nonetheless, impaired weather forecasting is just another unexpected result of the global pandemic.

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Slump in Air Travel Hindered Weather Forecasting, Study Shows

Photo, posted July 15, 2017, courtesy of Daria Nepriakhina via Flickr. Photo by Photo by Daria / epicantus.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

A Solar-Powered Airport

August 12, 2019 By EarthWise 1 Comment

The Chattanooga Metropolitan Airport in Tennessee has become the first airport in the United States to run entirely on solar power. The small airport operates over 60,000 flights a year and has recently completed work on a 12-acre, 2.64-megawatt solar farm that generates enough clean electricity to account for the airport’s total energy needs.

The project was funded largely by the Federal Aviation Administration, cost $10 million, and took nine years to complete. The facility uses onsite batteries to help power operations at night. The installation is expected to last 30 to 40 years.

The solar farm is in the southwest corner of the airfield on land that is unusable for aviation purposes. It is visible from the two runways at the airport.

Officials from nearly 50 airports around the world have visited or contacted the Chattanooga airfield in recent years to learn about its solar operations. Several major airports, including San Diego and London’s Gatwick, have also installed solar panels that provide a portion of their power needs. The world’s busiest airport – Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson – is looking into constructing renewable energy microgrids to power part of its operations. Airports generally have plenty of vacant land that can be used for solar panels that can lower their power bills.

The largest airport solar installation is actually Cochin International in Kerala, India, which became 100% solar powered in 2015. It is the 7^th largest airport in India. Its solar array has nearly 30 megawatts of capacity. Airport managers there were fed up with huge electric bills and invested about $9 million to install the solar array. It is expected to have paid for itself in the next couple of years.

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