Recent years have brought the IPCC report on climate change warning we have only until 2030 to slash carbon emissions and limit catastrophe, a devastating report on the UK’s 2020 biodiversity targets, the rise of pressure groups such as Extinction Rebellion, and seemingly endless headlines about the phenomenon of overtourism.
Yet it still feels as though the wider tourism industry fails to recognise that we are facing an emergency, or the severity of the problems it has itself served to exacerbate.
That’s why we welcome the announcement last week that the Commons environmental audit committee has launched an investigation into the environmental cost of tourism and transport.
The British tourism sector is expected to expand by an annual rate of 3.8% through to 2025. But focusing only on the economic advantages of growth misses the wider picture: it will result in a significant rise in carbon emissions that will seriously hinder the government’s legally binding target of net zero emissions by 2050. And of course such a rise in tourism will also aggravate a host of other environmental problems, including overcrowding, polluted beaches and strain on public transport in popular destinations.
