|| Climate Change and Tourism - Responding to Global Challenges
The Second International Conference on Climate Change and Tourism (Davos, Switzerland, October 2007) was a milestone event that brought together a wide variety of stakeholders and delivered a clear commitment for action to respond to the climate change challenge. It underscored the need for the tourism sector to rapidly respond to climate change if it is to develop in a sustainable manner, which
will require actions to: mitigate greenhouse gas emissions from the tourism sector, derived especially from transport and accommodation activities; adapt tourism businesses and destinations to changing
climate conditions; apply existing and new technologies to improve energy efficiency; and secure financial resources to assist regions and countries in need.
The Davos Declaration highlighting these actions is a huge step forward and presents concrete recommendations to the key interest groups involved in tourism. This is indeed necessary, considering
that tourism is today one of the world’s largest economic sectors, and represents an activity that forms an integral part of modern societies in both developed and developing countries. It is, above all, a
vital element in poverty reduction efforts and for the achievement of the UN Millennium Development Goals.
In the context of the Davos meeting, the report "Climate Change and Tourism: Responding to Global Challenges", which was commissioned to a group of prominent researchers, encompasses the status of
knowledge on the complex relationship between climate change and tourism. The publication notes the vulnerability of the sector to climate change and the impacts of tourism on climate itself. The report
provides an excellent basis to address the global phenomenon of climate change, as well as to develop practical tools that can be used by tourism policy-makers and managers to foster the sustainable growth
of the industry. The impacts and opportunities pertinent to the tourism sector are also underlined in the 2007 reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Global Environment