Greenhouse gases: eight percent...

... of all greenhouse gases arise through travel. How to come to such a number and what you can learn from it.

Greenhouse gases: eight percent...
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  • Page 1 — eight percent...
  • Page 2 — global travel industry is barely tested for climate targets
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    It is astonishing that a phenomenon that is moving around world, with a view to global warming, has so far hardly been noticed: travelling. It flushes tourists to strange places, it makes sure that cruise ships push mselves in endless succession through Venice, that in holiday season queues in front of counters of Charter aircraft in direction of dream beaches form.

    But what is proportion of travellers to greenhouse gas emissions (and thus to global warming)? So far re has been a pi-times-thumb-answer: Maybe two, three percent. One must "assume that sum of all emissions is higher", conjectured experts of three UN organisations – World Meteorological Organization, UN Environmental Programme and World Tourism Organisation – but: "There are no specific data Available for worldwide tourism. " That was 2008.

    Ten years later, this knowledge gap is now closing. Around eight percent of global greenhouse gas emissions are expected to cause travel. So big is climate "footprint" of all travelers. This was calculated by a team from Australia, Taiwan and Indonesia, who are also members of two Sydney-based German Manfred Lenzen and Arne Geschke. On Monday y published calculations in Nature Climate change.

    Eight percent of greenhouse gas emissions from tourism – almost every twelfth tonne – how do you come up with such a number?

    Manfred Lenzen, physicist and professor of sustainability analyses, says that in past, direct emissions were mainly added, for example, derived from fuel consumption of all air travel. "So-called indirect emissions from manifold supply chains of global tourism were mostly not taken into account." Now y were involved. "Examples are emissions from iron ore mining and metal processing, which initially flow into vehicle construction and thus contribute to footprint of airlines, bus companies, railway lines and car rental firms", explains Lenzen. "Furrmore, in most cases, no methane emissions were recorded, for example from livestock farming, which supplies meat-processing industry, which in turn supplies restaurants and hotels."

    This article comes from time No. 20/2018. Here you can read entire output.

    So it is now reported that tourism is much more damaging to climate than previously assumed, this is mainly due to previous assumptions. But is it also surprising?

    "Basically, study is very good to show what effects of tourism are," says emission specialist Niklas Höhne from NewClimate Institute in Bonn, which for example compares greenhouse gas emissions of States to UN. Höhne, who was not involved in study, praised variety of factors taken into account. And lapping up. "Basically, one third of global greenhouse gas emissions are due to food production," explains Höhne. So if you calculate everything that is eaten during a holiday, new high number will quickly appear plausible.

    However, holidaymakers would have eaten at home even if y had not travelled. "Of course," says Höhne, "it is a methodical question of what you fact everything." The authors of study also address issue mselves in ir publication. Your argument for incorporating emissions for food anyway: se fall on travel elsewhere. The study will focus on allocation of climate pollution to travellers ' countries of origin and to travel countries.

    Date Of Update: 10 May 2018, 12:03
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