A World Tourism Organization's senior official said on Wednesday that tourism will participate in the common effort of the international community in tackling the climate change.
Addressing the United Nations climate change conference in Bali, Indonesia, WTO's Secretary General Francesco Frangialli, said: "It is necessary to anticipate the developments that will take place in the travel, tourism and transport sector, to foster its adaptation, to diversify the products offered in order to make destinations less vulnerable, but also to limit such activities' contribution to the phenomenon of warming."
The industry must engage itself and refuse to take the easy way out. It should accept the application to it and in particular to air transport -- of regulatory mechanisms implemented in application of the Kyoto protocol, he said.
"This should be accomplished not just at the regional level, but on a global scale," he said, adding: "We are ready to take up our share of the burden."
But he argued that tourism should not be "unfairly targeted, saying that it is an activity that is just as respectable as others. It does not deserve to be demonized or penalized."
"Tourism contributes to global warming, but is at the same time a victim of such warming," he said.
"Tourism, a central phenomenon of today's world, is also changing. It is become globalized. It is diversifying."
"It is growing spectacularly from 165 million international arrivals in 1970, to 846 million last year, and undoubtedly, 1.6 billion in 2020," he said.
According to him, tourism generated 735 billion U.S. dollars in receipts last year, of which, 221 billion, or nearly one third, went to developing countries.
Greenhouse gas emissions generated by travel and tourism activities reportedly made up 5 percent of the total carbon emissions, and half of which is accounted for by passenger air transport.
He argued the fight against global warming is a great cause. It does not deserve to be pursued to the detriment of another great cause: the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.
Finally, he said he hoped that the behavior of travel and tourism professionals, operators, managers of accommodation establishments and developers must be proper to an industry with a civic mission.
The Dec. 3-14 U.N. climate conference, which gathered over 10,000 delegates from over 180 countries, aimed at drawing up a roadmap for negotiations on a new climate deal in the next two years to combat the accelerating global warming.
Source: Xinhua
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