Aviation is the Achilles heel of global tourism emissions

Aviation is the elephant in the room. It is also the primary ‘hotspot,’ with the  biggest growth in emissions among all tourism sectors. 

  • Aviation accounts for 52% of direct tourism emissions.
  • Aviation has experienced the biggest emissions growth among all tourism sub-sectors. 
  • This is the most difficult tourism-subsector to decarbonise.

According to the International Energy Agency, aviation has made ‘substantially insufficient’ progress in decarbonising itself due to challenges in management, technology and fuel transition, finance, and governance. Aviation is described as the Achilles heel of global tourism emissions because it is both ‘big’ in terms of emissions created and ‘difficult’ to decarbonize.

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Readers should download the full published paper for detailed research results, methodology, more detail around data sources and other relevant research parameters. 

You can download the paper here.