We summarize what we assess as the past year's most important findings within climate change research: limits to adaptation, vulnerability hotspots, new threats coming from the climate–health nexus, climate (im)mobility and security, sustainable practices for land use and finance, losses and damages, inclusive societal climate decisions and ways to overcome structural barriers to accelerate mitigation and limit global warming to below 2°C.
MULTIFILE
Human behaviour change is necessary to meet targets set by the Paris Agreement to mitigate climate change. Restrictions and regulations put in place globally to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 during 2020 have had a substantial impact on everyday life, including many carbon-intensive behaviours such as transportation. Changes to transportation behaviour may reduce carbon emissions. Behaviour change theory can offer perspective on the drivers and influences of behaviour and shape recommendations for how policy-makers can capitalise on any observed behaviour changes that may mitigate climate change. For this commentary, we aimed to describe changes in data relating to transportation behaviours concerning working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic across the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK. We display these identified changes in a concept map, suggesting links between the changes in behaviour and levels of carbon emissions. We consider these changes in relation to a comprehensive and easy to understand model of behaviour, the Opportunity, Motivation Behaviour (COM-B) model, to understand the capabilities, opportunities and behaviours related to the observed behaviour changes and potential policy to mitigate climate change. There is now an opportunity for policy-makers to increase the likelihood of maintaining pro-environmental behaviour changes by providing opportunities, improving capabilities and maintaining motivation for these behaviours.
The paper first describes an inventory for 2005 giving the tourism related CO 2 emission caused by global tourism, and presents a 30-year projection and a 45-year simulation. The study found that tourists cause 4.4% of global CO 2 emissions. Also these emissions are projected to grow at an average rate of 3.2% per year up to 2035. This increase is problematic as globally a reduction of emissions by 3-6% is required to avoid 'dangerous' climate change. Using contemporary scenario techniques it appeared difficult to find a future tourist travel system consistent with CO 2 emission reductions of up to 70% by 2050 with respect to 2005. Based on the model underlying the 30-year projection, 70 scenarios are presented in a 'landscape' graph exploring the effect of opportunities to reduce the emissions, but this attempt did not reach the large reductions envisaged. We therefore explored automated scenario generation as a way to define backcasting scenarios that both reach the emission reduction target and retain the highest possible economic value for the sector. The main contributions made by this study are (1) in comparing the value of different ways to approach a (desired) future and (2) giving insight into the kind of structural changes required within tourism and tourism transport in case very strong emission reductions are required. Finally the model showed signs of 'complex' behaviour.
Wet and healthy peatlands have a strong natural potential to save carbon and, due to their waterbuffering capacity, play an important role in managing periods of excessive rains or droughts. Yet, inNWE regions large areas of peatlands are drained for peat mining, agriculture or forestry, whichmakes them CO2 emission sources rather than sinks. By restoring the capacity to buffer carbon andwater, BUFFER+ partners aim at climate change adaptation and mitigation in NWE regions, while atthe same time restore biodiversity and create new revenue streams.BUFFER+ involves 21 partners and 7 Associated Organisations from regions
Client: Foundation Innovation Alliance (SIA - Stichting Innovatie Alliantie) with funding from the ministry of Education, Culture and Science (OCW) Funder: RAAK (Regional Attention and Action for Knowledge circulation) The RAAK scheme is managed by the Foundation Innovation Alliance (SIA - Stichting Innovatie Alliantie) with funding from the ministry of Education, Culture and Science (OCW). Early 2013 the Centre for Sustainable Tourism and Transport started work on the RAAK-MKB project ‘Carbon management for tour operators’ (CARMATOP). Besides NHTV, eleven Dutch SME tour operators, ANVR, HZ University of Applied Sciences, Climate Neutral Group and ECEAT initially joined this 2-year project. The consortium was later extended with IT-partner iBuildings and five more tour operators. The project goal of CARMATOP was to develop and test new knowledge about the measurement of tour package carbon footprints and translate this into a simple application which allows tour operators to integrate carbon management into their daily operations. By doing this Dutch tour operators are international frontrunners.Why address the carbon footprint of tour packages?Global tourism contribution to man-made CO2 emissions is around 5%, and all scenarios point towards rapid growth of tourism emissions, whereas a reverse development is required in order to prevent climate change exceeding ‘acceptable’ boundaries. Tour packages have a high long-haul and aviation content, and the increase of this type of travel is a major factor in tourism emission growth. Dutch tour operators recognise their responsibility, and feel the need to engage in carbon management.What is Carbon management?Carbon management is the strategic management of emissions in one’s business. This is becoming more important for businesses, also in tourism, because of several economical, societal and political developments. For tour operators some of the most important factors asking for action are increasing energy costs, international aviation policy, pressure from society to become greener, increasing demand for green trips, and the wish to obtain a green image and become a frontrunner among consumers and colleagues in doing so.NetworkProject management was in the hands of the Centre for Sustainable Tourism and Transport (CSTT) of NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences. CSTT has 10 years’ experience in measuring tourism emissions and developing strategies to mitigate emissions, and enjoys an international reputation in this field. The ICT Associate Professorship of HZ University of Applied Sciences has longstanding expertise in linking varying databases of different organisations. Its key role in CARMATOP was to create the semantic wiki for the carbon calculator, which links touroperator input with all necessary databases on carbon emissions. Web developer ibuildings created the Graphical User Interface; the front end of the semantic wiki. ANVR, the Dutch Association of Travel Agents and Tour operators, represents 180 tour operators and 1500 retail agencies in the Netherlands, and requires all its members to meet a minimum of sustainable practices through a number of criteria. ANVR’s role was in dissemination, networking and ensuring CARMATOP products will last. Climate Neutral Group’s experience with sustainable entrepreneurship and knowledge about carbon footprint (mitigation), and ECEAT’s broad sustainable tourism network, provided further essential inputs for CARMATOP. Finally, most of the eleven tour operators are sustainable tourism frontrunners in the Netherlands, and are the driving forces behind this project.
A CO2 analysis was made of the CBS Holiday Survey, on the impact of domestic holidays.Societal issueContribution to and impacts from climate change.Benefit to societyCO2-insights can better inform policymakers on how to support more sustainable choices and create climate proof policy in tourism.