Contrary to most sectors, to date the tourism and aviation industries have not managed to level off greenhouse gas emissions. Moreover, effective mitigation through technological innovation or structural and behavioural change cannot be expected shortly. Airlines and tourism companies appear to use carbon offsetting as a last resort. However, offsetting is generally acknowledged as a second-best solution for mitigating emissions, after reducing energy use. This paper seeks to determine the mitigation potential of voluntary carbon offsetting by comparing public and industry awareness of climate change and aviation emissions, and attitudes to various mitigation measures with relevant online communication by 64 offset providers. Methods were a literature review and online content analyses. Overall, the gaps that were identified between awareness, attitude and actual behaviour are not bridged by provider communication. From this perspective, the mitigation potential of voluntary carbon offsetting for achieving reductions of tourism transport emissions is estimated as low. The same conclusion is reached by comparing carbon dioxide volumes of flight offsets with actual air travel emissions. Current sales of flight offsets compensate less than 1% of all aviation emissions.
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Permanent grassland soils can act as a sink for carbon and may therefore positively contribute to climate change mitigation and adaptation. We compared young (5–15 years since latest grassland renewal) with old (>20 years since latest grassland renewal) permanent grassland soils in terms of carbon stock, carbon sequestration, drought tolerance and flood resistance. The research was carried out on marine clay soil at 10 dairy farms with young and old permanent grassland. As hypothesized, the carbon stock was larger in old grassland (62 Mg C ha−1) topsoil (0–10 cm) than in young grassland topsoil (51 Mg C ha−1). The carbon sequestration rate was greater in young (on average 3.0 Mg C ha−1 year−1) compared with old grassland (1.6 Mg C ha−1 year−1) and determined by initial carbon stock. Regarding potential drought tolerance, we found larger soil moisture and soil organic matter (SOM) contents in old compared with young grassland topsoils. As hypothesized, the old grassland soils were more resistant to heavy rainfall as measured by water infiltration rate and macroporosity (at 20 cm depth) in comparison with the young grassland soils. In contrast to our hypothesis we did not find a difference in rooting between young and old permanent grassland, probably due to large variability in root biomass and root tip density. We conclude that old grasslands at dairy farms on clay soil can contribute more to the ecosystem services climate change mitigation and climate change adaptation than young grasslands. This study shows that under real farm conditions on a clay topsoil, carbon stock increases with grassland age and even after 30 years carbon saturation has not been reached. Further study is warranted to determine by how much extending grassland age can contribute to climate change mitigation and adaptation.
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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.
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This paper presents a method and mock-up design for evaluating the heat-island mitigation effect of porous/water-retentive blocks in a climatic environmental chamber using ambient temperature measurements. To create the proposed method, the heat circulation mechanism of blocks was considered. From this, we specified the climatic chamber design requirements, determined the required components and equipment for the mock-up, and developed the proposed method for evaluating heat-island mitigation performance based on ambient temperature. Using the proposed mock-up design and method, we confirmed that both surface and air temperatures were lower when porous/water-retentive blocks were installed compared to conventional blocks. This method can be used to analyze the difference between surface and ambient temperatures under various conditions to quantify the heat-island mitigation performance of different materials according to ambient temperature.
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Because of its dependency on air transport, mitigating tourism greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions might become the most important challenge for the sustainability of the sector. Moreover climate change mitigation will be more and more in conflict with other sustainability objectives such as poverty alleviation and biodiversity conservation through tourism. Indeed, tourism increasingly contributes to global GHG emissions. Transport, and in particular air transport, have the largest share in those emissions, with respectively 75 per cent and 40 per cent of the tourism 5 per cent share of global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions estimated for 2005 (UNWTO et al. 2008). In terms of the actual contribution to climate change, measured in radiative forcing, the share of air transport is between 54 per cent and 83 per cent of tourism, depending on assumptions made on non-CO2 effects of aviation (Scott et al. 2010). Projections show a strong growth, with more than a doubling by 2035 (UNWTO et al. 2008). In a context where climate policies try to maintain global warming within the limit of +2 °C, this current tourism growth is apparently at odds with global emission reduction targets (Bows, Anderson and Peeters, 2007; Gössling et al. 2010).
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This paper explores innovative approaches to stimulating the uptake of existing climate technologies for mitigation and adaptation. Such innovations can be identified in the following areas: how technology options are selected by countries (i.e. as part of low-emission and climate-resilient pathways); how stakeholder views and practitioner knowledge, as well as their preferences, are solicited in climate technology planning; what financial innovations exist for enhancing funding of technology projects and programmes; and what are viable ways of enhancing private sector engagement and incubators.
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Tourism is an increasingly significant contributor to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Emissions growth in the sector is in substantial conflict with global climate policy goals that seek to mitigate climate change through significant emission reductions. This article discusses the role of various tourism sub-sectors in generating emissions, and technical and management options in reducing these. It concludes that given observed and anticipated emission growth rates, technology and management will not be sufficient to achieve even modest absolute emission reductions in the sector, pointing to the key role of social and behavioural change in realizing climatically sustainable tourism. The article also discusses some of the systemic barriers that have to be overcome in order for tourism to comply with post Kyoto Protocol global mitigation frameworks. The article concludes that radical change will be needed to reconcile the holiday and business travel demands of a growing world population with the climate policy targets of the international community, specifically restricting anthropogenic global warming to less than 2°C.
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