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BANGKOK: Nobel Peace Prize recipient Rajendra
Pachauri Tuesday warned tourism industry chiefs they need to reduce
their impact on climate change as consumers become more
environmentally aware.
“The tourism industry, for its
own sake, will have to adapt,” Pachauri said to more than 200 Asia
Pacific airline, hotel and tourist company chief executives at a
conference on tourism and climate change.
“I would appeal to you and urge
you to take steps so that you are seen not as the problem but as
part of the solution,” the head of the UN’s Nobel prizewinning
climate panel said in a pre-recorded video.
Global warming has the potential
to melt ski resorts out of business and drown island getaways with
rising sea levels, Pachauri told the first Pacific Asia Travel
Association (PATA) climate change conference.
Promoting energy efficiency and
offsetting carbon emissions, he said, must become standard business
practices as oil prices rise and savvy tourists start demanding
green credentials.
“Climate factors, which are
major determinants of tourist demand, could induce tourists to go to
new destinations,” Pachauri said. “There are issues that will
have to be carefully considered and mapped out.”
Pachauri and former US vice
president Al Gore accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for their
work to publicize the dangers of global warming.
Tourism industry leaders said it
was time they stopped being defensive every time someone mentioned
climate change and did something about it.
“It’s fine to lobby, it’s
fine to justify why we’re not as bad as other industries,” said
Rohit Talwar, CEO of tourism consultant agency Fast Future.
“But I’ve never seen a good
bit of lobbying that could stop a glacier from melting.”
Tantalizing slideshows of
gleaming silver resorts rising from the water near Dubai were
shadowed by charts of climbing carbon emissions which contribute to
global warming.
The tourism industry accounted
for about five percent of global emissions in 2007, according to the
UN World Tourism Organization. Growth in the tourism industry could
increase emissions by as much as 150 percent in 30 years.
--AFP
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