Debuting at COP29, can tourism lead march towards curbing carbon emissions?

Tourism will make its debut in global climate change negotiations in the next round of discussions, COP29, that opens in Baku later this month. So far, the discussions have spectacularly failed to produce any notable outcome, besides platitudes and numerous missed commitments. The global tourism industry has a golden opportunity to lead the way and show the world the true path to curbing carbon emissions. But the sector's own record in this aspect is hardly blemishless.

- Ranvir Nayar

When global climate negotiatiors gather at Baku in Azerbaijan on November 11 for the 29th round of the negotiations under COP29, they will have little to show for themselves as the negotiations and the agreements reached have failed to deliver and total carbon emissions continue to rise.

So high are the emissions now and so dire is the state of the world’s climate, that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which conducts these negotiations, issued a warning few days ago that global warming around the world will continue to rise sharply for many years to come as carbon emissions show no signs of easing.

It is in this sombre backdrop that the tourism industry will make its debut at the negotiations, which have so far centred around more ‘hardcore’ sectors like energy generation, construction, transportation, agriculture, industry and mining.

But even though tourism may not have been at the centre of climate change negotiations so far, the sector is in a unique position to show the way ahead to the global negotiatiors who seem to have been moving in circles so far and have little to show for nearly three decades of discussions on cutting carbon emissions.

According to Azerbaijan government which is hosting COP29, the fortnight-long discussions at Baku will include tourism as addressing the challenges of climate change in urban environments requires greater engagement across all sectors and levels, from the local to the regional and global. They say that the role of transportation in climate agenda will be addressed as a related priority and the first Tourism Day at a COP will also be organised to increase attention on how the sector is affected and can contribute. A high-level meeting on tourism will also be hosted on the occasion and the COP29 Declaration on Enhanced Action in Tourism will be launched.