Mitigation Policy

‘Mitigating’ climate change means reducing the build-up of GHGs in the atmosphere. For tourism, this relates mainly to CO₂, which is produced by the combustion of fossil fuels. Hence, any initiative that: (a) conserves energy; (b) uses energy more efficiently; or (c) replaces fossil energy with renewable energy, contributes to the reduction of the anthropogenic greenhouse effect (Becken and Hay, 2007). The offsetting of CO₂ emissions by an investment into carbon sequestration – most commonly through planting trees or re-vegetation projects – is also considered to be a (potentially) useful mitigation measure. Policies related to mitigation will be discussed in this chapter, and examples of good practice in tourism mitigation are presented in Chapter 6.