A little bit (more) on sustainable travel

Photo by Florida-Guidebook.com on Unsplash

Hello!

I’ve got what I hope is an interesting issue about sustainable travel. Hopefully no one’s eyes rolled back in their head at that sentence. I am an employee in the tourism industry and I do love to travel. However, I think it is critical for the tourism industry and travellers to be cognizant of our impact on the Earth. The industry does need to mitigate or reverse its impacts on fragile ecosystems, animals and plants, communities, cities, and people’s way of life at the destination. There are a lot of stakeholders in the tourism world. This includes tourists, people employed in the tourism industry at a destination, residents at a destination (humans and animals), and the Earth itself. Not only does the tourism industry need to be careful about preserving destinations for future tourists but also for its residents. Great places to visit should also be great places to live.

So, for this issue, most links will focus on sustainable tourism practices in some way.

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This quarter’s article

That’s right, I’m going to do one article a quarter until further notice. It isn’t always easy to find one that fits a theme and isn’t too dry. Plus, I don’t want to bore readers. I’ve been thinking a lot about how I want this newsletter to evolve and to encourage more discussion and that was the first change I’m making.

Without further ado, Pathway to zero emissions in global tourism: opportunities, challenges, and implications

I saw the linked article above in the open-access journal articles and clicked it immediately. It was published this summer and just the type of article and research I am looking to read and write about. 

The researchers, Peeters and Papp, have two questions in this article

• How would the tourism sector function under a true zero emissions climate mitigation scenario?

• What would be the economic and social consequences of such a scenario?

They want to “show the economic and travel consequences of a true zero emissions future of the core businesses of tourism”. 

Peeters and Papp write that the major contributors to CO₂ emissions is air travel and that technology in fuel efficiency is not even close to the goal of zero emissions by 2050. The year 2050 is in the Paris Agreement as the year that global emissions must reach net zero. Airplane fuel accounts for 40% of a plane’s weight. If cars can be electric, why can’t airplanes? Because a battery powerful enough to power a commercial jet is about 42 times heavier than what the fuel weighs, according to Peeters and Papp, and thus that is not a solution. 

A hybrid solution of hydrogen fuel and onboard batteries is a solution to zero-emissions and fuel efficiency. However, the major commercial jet manufacturers like Airbus and Boeing don’t see this as feasible until 2035 for short-haul flights and 2048 for long haul flights. Neither of those are soon enough to achieve net-zero by 2050 in the tourism industry.

This zero-emissions tourism policy by 2050 depends upon a few non-negotiables to work: (quoted directly from Peeters and Papp, below.)

• Full electrification of accommodation, cars, and other transport forms by 2050

• 100% renewables in electricity production by 2050

• An e-fuel blending mandate starting in 2025 and rising to 100% in 2050

  • Due to the 10% maximum renewables share assumed, there will not be enough e-fuel to accommodate all BAU air travel under a 100% e-fuel mandate. Therefore, a global airport capacity constraint avoids most of the air travel growth between 2025 and 2050. Potential measures are a slots cap, an emission cap, or to include international aviation in NDC’s; GTTMdyn provides only a slots cap).

  • Note from me (hi) I am mostly certain that BAU means business as usual. It was not defined in the paper and I Googled and that made the most sense. Whyyyy couldn’t they have spelled that out? Is anyone walking around saying BAU or using that regularly? A bit silly imho. ;)

• A multi-trillion investment in faster surface transport like high-speed rail, e-fuel development, zero emissions aircraft, renewables, and electrification.

The researchers note that airports in the European Union have introduced policies like  synthetic fuel blending mandates, set traffic limits, and emissions limits to limit air traffic and reduce carbon emissions. I am curious if airports throughout the rest of the world have any such mandates? The EU’s mandates for air travel are helpful but the researchers also encourage more local/regional travel.

The conclusion that Peeters and Papp made after their analysis of the tourism industry is that three big changes must happen to achieve zero-emissions tourism. 

Those three key items are: 

1. zero-emissions aircraft 

2. safe and fuel efficient synthetic fuel 

3. airport policies that limit air traffic 

The researchers also recommend that destination management organizations, tour operators, and government tourism agencies should work together to encourage more domestic and regional travel. This type of travel to short and medium haul distances promotes local tourism economies. DMOs and government tourism agencies could encourage and incentivize longer stays, and collaborate to reduce mitigate the harmful impacts of tourism.They suggest that tourists themselves don’t have to make major behavioural changes, but the transportation industries must make the changes.

These are big changes in an industry that has already come a long way in a short time, relatively speaking. That said, if any, I believe that the aviation industry probably can make the necessary changes to work toward net-zero in a short timeline. What do you think? Do you think we’ll see synthetic fuel commercial aircraft in 10 years? Battery operated aircraft for short-haul flights?

This goes with the first link, I promise. Posing with Machu Picchu after hiking the Inca Trail in 2022.

Sustainable tourism links

One factor to consider in travelling sustainably is visiting destinations that are not experiencing over-tourism. An example of peak over-tourism was Barcelona this summer, or parts of Italy during any summer. The Italian government started limiting tourist numbers at historical sites several years ago to protect the environment and locals in places like the capital, Cinque Terre, and Venice but that doesn’t mean places aren’t still crowded. Similarly, the daily visitors at Machu Picchu and the Inca Trail are strictly limited by the Peruvian government with a permit system. You can visit popular destinations in the off season or you can find somewhere totally new to go. Here are a few ideas. 

I really want to go back to Berlin after spending not long enough there earlier this year. I am very intrigued by this hotel that is setting trends for sustainability. The city also has a museum of the future and a lot of urban gardens. Here’s more info on Berlin’s green efforts.

Someone I follow in social media was recently in Singapore and her stories commented on how HOT it is. I have not been to Singapore yet, the heat is one factor that has kept it from being high on my list. However, I’d love to go and Cooling Singapore is an initiative that might move it up a bit on my list because they’re taking rising temperatures very seriously.

Tourism and tourism adjacent links

How to help in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.

How long do you really need for a layover? I read this article and the recommendations seem reasonable and like good advice to follow. Any connection under an hour makes me nervous because it takes so long for people to get off of a plane these days? (WHY?)

The “best” (take that with a grain of salt of course) cross-body bags for travel. Take a look at those and get a good idea of what they think makes a good bag and then shop a thrift store, consignment shop, Facebook marketplace, or Poshmark for a gently used version. 

Things I liked:

Not necessarily travel-related…

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami. My friend Petya recommended this to me after I said I didn’t enjoy Norwegian Wood. I really enjoyed this memoir about running and life since I am also a runner. It also made me want to read more of his books. He’s witty and thoughtful (two things I also discovered about Salman Rushdie after reading Knife). I’m open to your suggestions if you have a favourite! 

What I love about reading a book that was not originally written in English is thinking about how it must be written or expressed in the writer’s native language. I wonder about the differences in interpretation. I have read a good bit of fiction and a few memoirs from Swedish authors and they do have a certain tone or mood to them. Now I’m curious to read more Japanese authors translated into English. I found myself thinking about this again after finishing a Swedish show…

I also finished reading You Need A Better Vacation written by Jennica Day. If you have been subscribing for awhile, you’ll remember I had a conversation with Jennica last fall about her vacation research and about her book before it was published. I was looking forward to reading it because there is not a lot of straightforward and interesting writing on the science behind vacation and the necessity of recovery.

In her book, Day lays out the different types of vacationers, the importance of recovery as it relates to taking a vacation, how travel can differ from vacation, and that they are not necessarily the same thing! I covered this in my earlier conversation with her, since she defined them well. 

I read the kindle version of this book and I want to go back to reread and make some notes. Particularly interesting for me was reading about how long the vacation happiness lasts after you return home and when you should book more time off so that you ride the high of your vacation into anticipating the next one. That doesn’t mean a fancy or far-flung trip every time you have a vacation, it means a period of rest from your work.

I am eagerly waiting for the new The Smile album to drop on October 4, the day this publishes.

I’m knitting quite a lot so I’ve got some shows on while my hands are busy. I liked A Nearly Normal Family - where a Swedish family’s daughter is accused of murder. This show was enjoyable and scary at times as it dealt with violence against women. It is also based on a novel by a Swedish author of the same name and I want to read it as well. Equinox - totally scary Danish show that I would describe as a cross between Dark (a very good and scary German Netflix show) and Midsommar (a creepy film). I can’t even begin to describe it better than the trailer does.

I also watched Monster: The Menendez Brothers. I am sure you can find it or have heard of it and I don’t need to link it. I knew nothing about their story other than they killed their parents. I was pretty young when their story was in the news. That series was also not for the faint of heart. I finished it and felt icky about their story, how they were treated, what they did, the list goes on. It is not a feel-good story. Will I still watch the next documentary that drops in a few days about them? Probably.

Until next time!

Sonya