Happiness and limits to sustainable tourism mobility

Tourism is both a victim and a vector of climate change (Cabrini et al., 2009). Although the impact of climate change on tourism will lead to considerable behavioural change for entrepreneurs, governments and tourists, this chapter examines behavioural change required to mitigate the impact of tourism on climate. Global tourism is responsible for 5 per cent of current global CO₂ emissions (UNWTO- UNEP-WMO, 2008). The impact of tourism on radiative forcing — the main parameter determining the changes in temperature — is greater. Up to 12.5 per cent of radiative forcing is caused by non-carbon effects such as contrails and contrail- induced cirrus clouds that are caused by aviation (Scott et al, 2010). Approximately, 75 per cent of all CO₂ emissions are caused by transportation, of which 40 per cent is caused by air transportation alone (UNWTO-UNEP-WMO, 2008). Adding the effects of radiative forcing, these shares could be as high as 91 per cent and 74 per cent, respectively (UNWTO-UNEP-WMO, 2008). Although air transportation’s share was only 17 per cent of all transportation emissions in 2005, multiple studies (Dubois et al, 2011; Peeters and Dubois, 2010; Scott et al, 2010) explained that current behavioural trends towards a higher share of air transportation and concomitant increase of distances have caused a significant increase in emissions.