The US, EU and UK are all on board. The G20, which accounts for 80% of all pollution, is close to agreement on it too. Even China is there, with a marginally longer 2060 timeframe.

Crucially, travel and tourism – one of the planet’s biggest industries – has a seat at the table. Nearly 300 Iata airlines agreed net zero 2050 at their annual meeting, and the world’s airports signed on over a year ago. The World Travel and Tourism Council, which represents some 200 hospitality, transport and touring corporations, has a net zero roadmap. Clia members are betting on net zero 2050, while the International Maritime Organisation’s goal is a 50% absolute emission reduction by 2050.

Net zero 2050 is also the central message of the Glasgow Declaration that the United Nations World Tourism Organisation, UN Environment Programme, Tourism Declares a Climate Emergency, the Future of Tourism and others are championing at Cop26.

At SUNx Malta, the firm of which I am president, we have also committed to being an early signatory of the declaration. But while this document is a good first step, we believe net zero is not enough – and 2050 is not soon enough.

The travel and tourism industry must make the Glasgow net zero target by 2030, not 2050, and show commitment to get on the diet now – and stick to it.

While it makes sense to run with the "net" adaptation scenario for a full decade, allowing time for genuine adjustment and tough actions, we must reduce emission immediately to meet the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to 1.5C or lower.

How we, as an industry, meet these targets needs to be transparent, and we need to build in a carbon dioxide end date now. The travel industry needs to "dash to zero". The science supports this. Extreme weather events illustrate this. Our youth, whose future we are discussing, are screaming at us to take action.

Research by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the World Meteorological Organisation and other peer-level research states the current aggregated 2030 carbon reduction ambitions of all UN states will result in "a 16% increase in global carbon output rather than the 50% reduction by 2030 that the Paris goal of 1.5C requires".

It also suggests we are on track for a greater than 1.5C increase this decade, and closer to 3C by the second half of the century. Experts say we need tough near-term peak targets and rapid reductions in emissions over the next five to 10 years to meet the Paris 1.5C goal by 2050.

Consider the floods in Europe and North America; the forest fires in California, Canada, Australia and Siberia; the melting ice caps in Greenland and Antarctica; the Caribbean hurricanes; the South China Sea typhoons; the droughts in Africa; and the climate refugees everywhere. These tragedies increase in number and intensity annually.

A recent report in Science stated: "If the planet continues to warm on its current trajectory, today’s average six-year-old will see twice as many wildfires, 1.7 times as many tropical cyclones, 3.4 times more river floods, 2.5 times more crop failures and 2.3 times as many droughts as someone born in 1960."

Let that sink in as you look at your children.

’Further, faster’

It may sound like a huge, perhaps even impossible, challenge. But this is absolutely achievable if we have the will to take the necessary action.

At SUNx Malta, we work with travel companies to help them transition to the new climate economy. To prioritise climate, we have – for example – built a transparency registry, linked to the UN Climate Action Portal. We’re making it available to tourism stakeholders who sign the Glasgow Declaration.

The registry allows companies to share their goals and progress, highlighting their commitment to climate-friendly travel. We have also created a support network to share current best practice on climate resilience and emission reduction, including giving members access to wide-ranging research and delivery tools.

These tools are available to other travel and tourism companies, and we should all share our knowledge with the aim of creating a robust, planet-friendly industry. Setting goals three decades into the future isn’t creating a solution, because it’s designed to keep polluting practices in place while we can get away with it. We must go much further and much faster.

Geoffrey Lipman is president of SUNx Malta. He is a former executive director of Iata and ex-assistant secretary general of the UNWTO, and was the first president of the WTTC.