ABSTRACT
The chapters in this book have outlined the considerable climate change mitigation challenges ahead, which perhaps becomes most obvious when expressed as the annual rate at which GHG emissions have to be reduced globally to keep climate change at a level not risking ‘dangerous interference with the climate system’, i.e. 3 per cent per year, notably corresponding to efficiency gains of at least twice this rate given observed growth rates in tourism-related emissions (cf. IPCC 2007b; Anderson and Bows 2008; UNWTO-UNEPWMO 2008). Furthermore, this 3 per cent is the rate if emissions peak in the very near future: the challenge becomes significantly greater should emissions peak by 2020 or later. As various authors have outlined, a 3 per cent per year cut in emissions is already a very ambitious goal, and is not likely to leave room for any economic sector not to make a contribution to this target.
