The World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) and Saudi-based Sustainable Tourism Global Center have unveiled new data detailing the climate footprint of the travel and tourism sector in North America.
Between 2010 and 2019, the North American travel and tourism sector decoupled its economic growth from its greenhouse gas emissions. The new data for the region, which includes the U.S., Canada and Mexico, reveals the total contribution to North America’s GDP grew on average 3.1 percent annually, while greenhouse gas emissions increased by just 1.2 percent during the same period.
The data also demonstrates how the sector’s emissions intensity continues to decrease. In 2010, for every $1 of the region’s travel and tourism GDP, the sector emitted 0.53kg of greenhouse gas emissions. But in 2019, when travel and tourism was at its peak, this figure dropped by 15 percent to 0.45kg. This demonstrates the progress of changes implemented by governments and business leaders across North America to create a more sustainable sector.
As a whole, in 2019, the sector was responsible for just 9.3 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions in North America.
This research, which covers 185 countries across all regions, will be updated each year with the latest figures. Despite the progress, however, Julia Simpson, WTTC president and CEO, said, “To reach our goals and ambitions, we must make bigger and bolder steps to reduce our absolute emissions.
“And for this, we need government support in accelerating the production of Sustainable Aviation Fuels which will have a significant impact on our footprint, as well as bringing in more renewable energy to our national grids.”
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