Indian tourism leaves fourth largest carbon footprint

Tuesday, May 8, 2018

In a recent study it has been found that India has the world’s fourth-largest carbon footprint from tourism, including business travel, after the US, China and Germany. The study stated estimated that tourism accounts for 8 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

 
It has shown that domestic travel accounts for larger portions of carbon footprints than foreign travel in each of these countries.

 
The study, released on Monday, is the first to quantify greenhouse gas emissions from all tourism activities, from air travel to shopping for souvenirs and eating in restaurants.

 
It also suggests that American travellers top the tourism carbon footprint ranking, contributing 909 million tonnes in emissions irrespective of where they travel – nearly four times the 240 million tonnes from Indians, irrespective of where they travel.

 
An analysis of emissions specifically from bilateral movements shows that people from Canada, Mexico and Britain travelling to the US make up the top three contributions. India features just outside the top 10 – travellers from the US to India make up the 11th largest contribution to emissions from bilateral movements.

 
“Our analysis is a world-first look at the true cost of tourism, a complete lifecycle assessment of global tourism, ensuring that we don’t miss any impacts,” said Arunima Malik, a researcher at the University of Sydney who led the study.

 
“We’re able to capture both direct and indirect impacts by scanning upstream supply chains,” Malik said.

 
Malik and her colleagues examined supply chains – including those for transport, shopping and food – in the context of tourism, extracting available data from 189 countries.

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