The Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change represents the state of knowledge of anthropogenic disruption to the climate system, its diverse ecosystem and societal impacts, and the imperative for and challenges of mitigation and adaptation responses. It is foundational for global climate policymaking. This paper examines the place of tourism in AR6 and reviews its key findings for tourism's future. Overall, tourism related content declined relative to previous assessments. While notable improvements in content occurred for Africa, visible knowledge gaps remain in the tourism growth regions of South America, Middle East, and South Asia. There remains limited discussion of many impacts, and very limited understanding of integrated impacts and the effectiveness of adaptation strategies at the destination scale. The contribution of tourism to global emissions was omitted, however tourism was discussed in the context of luxury emissions and just transitions. Tourism is repeatedly identified in solution space discussions, particularly for ecosystem protection, but without consideration of the future of tourism in a rapidly decarbonizing and climate disrupted economy. With only 21% of published climate change and tourism literature in the AR6 review period cited, tourism academics should elevate tourism content and engagement in future assessments.

Small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) within the tourism sector play crucial yet often underestimated roles in climate change mitigation, contributing to approximately half of the sector's greenhouse gas emissions. Although the existing literature has examined barriers to climate change action and potential drivers for the involvement of small firms, these aspects have not been comprehensively explored within the context of tourism. The article addresses this gap by conducting a narrative review that analyzes 78 papers and reports published on the topic. The results substantiate a differentiation among barriers, pressures, and incentives. Barriers encompass aspects related to knowledge and personality, understanding and perceptions, management, data, finances, technology, legislation, and community. Pressures originate from costs, customer expectations, and compliance. Incentives manifest in economic considerations, subsidies, marketing strategies, staff benefits, and community advantages. The findings are synthesized into a series of conceptualizations, offering pathways for progress on mitigation. Findings emphasize the significance of legislation and efforts of destination management organizations for accelerating SME engagement with climate change.

Air transport is energy-intense, and considerable attention has been paid to the sector's use of fuel and emissions of greenhouse gases. Commercial aviation is believed to currently emit about 1 Gt CO2 per year, if considering global bunker fuel use (scope 1 in the Greenhouse Gas Protocol). A growing database is becoming available on scope 1-3 emissions; this is, including up- and downstream emissions, and it is now possible to assess the aviation system's carbon intensity more comprehensively. This paper investigates the annual reports of 26 of the largest airlines in the world by market capitalisation, finding that reporting on emissions for scopes 1-3 is still inconsistent and characterised by reporting gaps. Yet, available data suggests that scope 3 emissions are significant (about 30% of scope 1 emissions). These findings have repercussions for the sector's net-zero ambitions, climate governance, consumer choices and air transport finance, as the overall contribution from air travel to climate change remains underestimated. Results suggest that it is in the sector's interest to present robust, transparent, consistent and accurate emission inventories - and to engage with the implications.

Climate change is no longer in the future, it is an evolving business and policy reality for tourism. Extreme weather events including heavy rainfall and flooding, drought, heat waves, storms, and wildfires have become more frequent and intense, affecting tourism destinations and demand everywhere in the world. Climate change also affects important tourism assets. Snowfall has become less reliable in many winter destinations, while sea level rise and ocean warming threaten resources such as beaches and coral reefs. There is also a rising cost of travel associated with climate change. All have in common that they will increasingly affect the global geography of travel and tourism. This paper provides an overview of the history of research into tourism and climate change, current research trends, as well as a discussion of key research gaps. It uses a geographical lens that centers on space, represented by destinations. Even though these interrelationships are now sufficiently well understood, there is limited evidence that industry or policy makers have internalized and act on this knowledge. Disruptions in tourism flows in time and space thus need to be anticipated. © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Tourism has a critical role to play in global carbon emissions pathway. This study estimates the global tourism carbon footprint and identifies the key drivers using environmentally extended input-output modelling. The results indicate that global tourism emissions grew 3.5% p.a. between 2009-2019, double that of the worldwide economy, reaching 5.2 Gt CO2-e or 8.8% of total global GHG emissions in 2019. The primary drivers of emissions growth are slow technology efficiency gains (0.3% p.a.) combined with sustained high growth in tourism demand (3.8% p.a. in constant 2009 prices). Tourism emissions are associated with alarming distributional inequalities. Under both destination- and resident-based accounting, the twenty highest-emitting countries contribute three-quarters of the global footprint. The disparity in per-capita tourism emissions between high- and low-income nations now exceeds two orders of magnitude. National tourism decarbonisation strategies will require demand volume thresholds to be defined to align global tourism with the Paris Agreement.

There is a consensus that the global tourism system needs to undergo decarbonization and achieve net-zero emissions by mid-century. However, given the anticipated growth in the most energy-intensive subsector of tourism, air transport, achieving this goal seems unlikely. This paper focuses on the role of distance in the global geography of tourism, against evidence that National Marketing Organizations (NTOs) often seek to attract visitors from all over the world. The analysis of data for a sample of 12 NTOs in Europe, the USA and Canada reveals that the number of markets targeted varies between six and 33, with significant differences in the average distance to markets (<4,000 to 8,000 km), as well as emissions per arrival by market (0.2 t CO2 to 2.5 t CO2). For the countries studied, the 17% of the most distant arrivals cause 62% of the emissions. Results also show that more distant markets are more sensitive to disruptions such as COVID-19. These findings have relevance for destination marketing that point to new climate change related roles for NTOs such as rebranding, demarketing, market segmentation, and communication.

While air transport decarbonization is theoretically feasible, less attention has been paid to the complexity incurred in various 'transition barriers' that act as roadblocks to net-zero goals. A total of 40 barriers related to mitigation, management, technology and fuel transition, finance, and governance are identified. As these make decarbonization uncertain, the paper analyzes air transport system's growth, revenue, and profitability. Over the period 1978-2022, global aviation has generated marginal profits of US$20200.94 per passenger, or US$202082 billion in total. Low profitability makes it unlikely that the sector can finance the fuel transition cost, at US $0.5-2.1 trillion (Dray et al. 2022). Four radical policy scenarios for air transport futures are developed. All are characterized by "limitations", such as CO2 taxes, a carbon budget, alternative fuel obligations, or available capacity. Scenario runs suggest that all policy scenarios will more reliably lead to net-zero than the continued volume growth model pursued by airlines.

Much recent research on climate change mitigation has focused on carbon intensities, i.e. emissions per unit of economic value, to better understand interrelationships of decarbonization with value. This paper studies large tourism enterprises, which account for a large share of tourism's emissions. Based on annual reports, the paper evaluates greenhouse gas emission and revenue interrelationships for a total of n = 29 large tourism companies including airlines, cruise lines and accommodation businesses. Together, these companies represent about 13% (365 Mt CO2) of global tourism emissions, generating revenues of US$477 billion (in 2019). The paper tracks their total emissions and emission intensities over the period 2015–2019, revealing that large tourism firms are not on track to net-zero. Results show considerable differences in emission intensities between the three tourism subsectors and between individual firms within the subsectors. These findings are discussed against emission reduction needs to mid-century. There is strong evidence that continued growth at industry's expected rates represents an insurmountable barrier to net-zero, contradicting industry narratives of progressively and successfully engaging with climate change mitigation. 

Commercial aviation's contribution to climate change is growing, but the global role of private aviation is not well quantified. Here we calculate the sector's CO2 emissions, using flight tracker data from the ADS-B Exchange platform for the period 2019 to 2023. Flight times for 25,993 private aircraft and 18,655,789 individual flights in 2019-2023 are linked to 72 aircraft models and their average fuel consumption. We find that private aviation contributed at least 15.6 Mt CO2 in direct emissions in 2023, or about 3.6 t CO2 per flight. Almost half of all flights (47.4%) are shorter than 500 km. Private aviation is concentrated in the USA, where 68.7% of the aircraft are registered. Flight pattern analysis confirms extensive travel for leisure purposes, and for cultural and political events. Emissions increased by 46% between 2019-2023, with industry expectations of continued strong growth. Regulation is needed to address the sector's growing climate impact. Carbon dioxide emissions from private aviation increased by 46% between 2019 and 2023, with almost half of flights covering less than 500 km in distance, according to an analysis of flight tracking data.

Introduction

Current urban and transport planning practices have significant negative health, environmental, social and economic impacts in most cities. New urban development models and policies are needed to reduce these negative impacts. The Superblock model is one such innovative urban model that can significantly reduce these negative impacts through reshaping public spaces into more diverse uses such as increase in green space, infrastructure supporting social contacts and physical activity, and through prioritization of active mobility and public transport, thereby reducing air pollution, noise and urban heat island effects. This paper reviews key aspects of the Superblock model, its implementation and initial evaluations in Barcelona and the potential international uptake of the model in Europe and globally, focusing on environmental, climate, lifestyle, liveability and health aspects.

Methods

We used a narrative meta-review approach and PubMed and Google scholar databases were searched using specific terms.

Results

The implementation of the Super block model in Barcelona is slow, but with initial improvement in, for example, environmental, lifestyle, liveability and health indicators, although not so consistently. When applied on a large scale, the implementation of the Superblock model is not only likely to result in better environmental conditions, health and wellbeing, but can also contribute to the fight against the climate crisis. There is a need for further expansion of the program and further evaluation of its impacts and answers to related concerns, such as environmental equity and gentrification, traffic and related environmental exposure displacement. The implementation of the Superblock model gained a growing international reputation and variations of it are being planned or implemented in cities worldwide. Initial modelling exercises showed that it could be implemented in large parts of many cities.

Conclusion

The Superblock model is an innovative urban model that addresses environmental, climate, liveability and health concerns in cities. Adapted versions of the Barcelona Superblock model are being implemented in cities around Europe and further implementation, monitoring and evaluation are encouraged. The Superblock model can be considered an important public health intervention that will reduce mortality and morbidity and generate cost savings for health and other sectors.