The Price of a Photo on a Camel Is All It Takes...

As a follow-up from my last post, I thought I'd share with you an image circling around the media that effectively sums up a lot of what I talked about. The last panel really struck me - globally, direct tourism carbon dioxide emissions (so not even including the indirect emissions embedded in food production, hotel construction etc.) are almost double those released by 5 of the top 10 emitting countries. So whaddya say? Would you be willing to pay the price of a photo on a camel to decarbonize tourism? 

Just a note that in the top panel, the 'decarbonized' scenario is based on the high-end emission reduction scenario (-70% by 2050) of the IPCC's recommended range (i.e. very, very, very positive... idealistic even, one might say.) If the scenario that's actually been endorsed by the tourism industry (-50% by 2035 and then stable) was shown, the graph may have been slightly less dramatic. Always best to take things the media says with a pinch of salt...

Source. Image is based on this study.

A survey conducted on tourists travelling to Churchill Bay in Canada found that 46% of those questioned were willing to buy carbon offsets on top of their flight ticket (and, in fact that the average price willing to be paid is 10% of the cost of that flight - far more than $11 in many cases!) However, they also found that a strong barrier purchase of carbon offsets was the doubt surrounding what a carbon offset is, how it works to mitigate against carbon emissions, and the most reliable companies to purchase them from. This suggests to me that climate change education is key in encouraging consumers to opt for carbon offsets, and critical in gaining customers sympathies if carbon offsets are imposed as a compulsory tax on airplane tickets.

Can the Tourism Sector Survive in a Decarbonized World?

In a couple of days time, the 21st session of the Conference of the Parties (COP-21) will be happening in Paris to agree upon a fresh global agenda restricting increases in average global temperature to 2°C relative to pre-industrial temperatures. Currently, the tourism sector globally is pretty much completely reliant on energy from fossil fuels. Direct emissions contribute an (highly conservative!) estimated 5% to global anthropogenic CO₂ emissions, more than all but 5 countries worldwide! Furthermore, one business as usual scenario (which even incorporates optimistic advances in energy efficiency) predicted tourism's CO₂ releases will increase by ~135% from 2005-2035 with an increase in travel numbers, frequency and distance largely from rapidly developing countries.

In order to have a likely (i.e. not even certain!) change of achieving COP-21’s target, the IPCC stated that current worldwide CO₂ emissions need to be lowered 40 - 70% by 2050. The United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) has endorsed a sectorial carbon emissions reduction target of 50% by 2035 (relative to 2005 emissions). Put bluntly, the coordinated national and international policies required throughout the global tourism sector to achieve such emission reductions do not currently exist. In fact, none of the available decarbonization scenarios designed to achieve the 2 °C target even explicitly discuss tourism, despite its substantial contribution to global emissions. We shall wait with baited breath as to the outcome of the COP-21 negotiations, but the question remains regardless: how will the tourism sector survive in such a decarbonized global economy?

In this post I will compare the effectiveness of two distinct policy strategies tourism could take to reduce CO₂ emissions: carbon offsetting and emissions abatement.

Carbon offsetting or trading is a market-based mechanism which involves purchasing emission reduction credits achieved in sectors outside tourism. Although effectively avoiding the costs and any technological limitations of actual emission reduction, offsetting has so far been implemented with highly variable and non-standardised verification and credibility. Beyond problems of credibility, offsetting without legally binding emission reduction targets and caps for sectors can result in total global greenhouse gas emissions remain pretty much the same – essentially a business as usual scenario justifying continued inaction and attracting high levels of criticism from activists.

On the other hand, emissions abatement refers to explicit reduction of carbon emissions within the tourism sector, through mechanisms such as efficiency improvements to reduce energy usage and a transition to lower-carbon fuels. The potential for reducing tourism’s emissions is dependent on subsector, being especially expensive and tricky for air-travel as fuel efficiency advances and low-carbon fuel alternatives are both limited. Conversely, sizeable reductions in emissions (20 - 50%) are possible for the accommodation subsector at an initial negative cost as shown in Figure 1, via investment in energy efficiency, biofuels and renewable power.

Figure 1. A comparison of tourism sub-sector emission reduction and carbon offset prices with time. Source.

A recent paper modelled the financial costs of two emission reduction scenarios with either solely carbon offsetting, or offsetting in combination with abatement. Although the difference is slight, the results in Figure 2 show that emission abatement combined with offsets to strategically target aviation, is less expensive than carbon offsetting on its own, for both emission reduction scenarios. In fact, the additive cost throughout the thirty five years is 5.2% lower for the combination of abatement and offsetting (scenario 2) than scenario 1.

Figure 2. Cost of exclusive carbon offsetting, or offsetting combined with emission abatement for two emission scenarios: either a -50% reduction by 2035 (from 2005 levels) and subsequent stability, or a -50% reduction followed by a -70% reduction till 2050 after 2035. Source.

Importantly, in practical terms, the costs for emission reduction appear attainable as a proportion of overall global tourism revenue. Significant investment is required – starting at approximately US $1 billion annually beginning in the 2020s – but relatively speaking, this investment is lower than 0.1% of the predicted global tourism income for 2020. For example, if the projected costs for achieving scenario 2 by 2030 ($ 70 billion) was spread amongst the projected 6.6 billion domestic and international travellers for that year (under a medium growth projection for population), the per trip cost would be approximately US $11 - on par with many existing tourism fees and taxes set by governments and private companies that have had little, if any, impacts on the overall economic growth of thesector.

So what is your opinion, my curious reader? Is a global system of carbon trading the best way forward, investment in emissions reduction, or a combination of the two? And would you be willing to pay the extra $11 to carbon neutralise your holiday and ensure sustainability of the tourism industry? Personally, the path seems straightforward – beyond the comparative cost effectiveness of emission abatement with strategic carbon offsetting, future international agreements such as those expected at COP-21 may impose stricter emission and carbon trading limits for the tourism sector. Without investing in emission reduction now, this would leave the sector exposed to potentially increasing carbon trading costs and struggling to rapidly reduce emissions, hindering future economic growth of the sector.

Increased temperatures are really not in tourism's best interest. Many popular tourist destinations and activities, from the skiing industry to iconic species, are negatively affected by climate change. As could be expected, the modest $ 11 cost per traveller for the required investment has been widely shouted about in the media – almost exclusively in a positive light, with catchy slogans such as “are we willing to pay less than the price of an extra checked bag…?” and, my personal favourite: “the $11 solution to cleaning up the tourism business”. This is a good thing. Raising public awareness of the global environmental impacts of tourism and its potential management pathways is necessary. But the cost isn't the only thing to consider: emission reductions will not be easy. The tourism sector will require its own clear, globally integrated and consistent strategic policy framework that all subsectors and countries are on board with, combined with a sector-wide systematic emissions monitoring system. Without these, business leaders and investors will be unwilling to invest in low-carbon technologies for the sector, leaving it with little hope of achieving its emission reduction plans. Greater discussion and coordination amongst the tourism industry, governments and researcherss is necessary to address both of these challenges. The model discussed above assumed a well-functioning governance systems, yet this will not always be the case, especially in developing countries. Yet in light of the rising consumer activism against heavily carbon-emitting sectors, the global tourism industry will not be able to hide for long – it needs to make itself heard in international discussions such as COP-21, and it needs to start taking responsibility for its actions if it is to become truly sustainable.

BREAKING NEWS: KILLER SUNSCREEN MURDERS INFANT CORALS IN COLD BLOOD!

During my somewhat shameful evening routine of trawling through Daily Mail online, I came across a rather dramatic article on how sunscreen lotions are “killing off” coral reefs. Having previously explored the impacts of recreational tourist activity on coral reefs this immediately caught my attention. My initial thoughts were pretty sceptical – the language was highly sensationalist (posing sun lotions as an “existential threat”), and after all, it is the Daily Mail. But I eventually found the original, much more academic (and, I must say, rather dense) article that has since received heavy press coverage. Hence, not only am I able to further use my blog to name-and-shame tourism for killing off corals, but I was presented with a tantalising opportunity to compare the Daily Mail’s (and other news outlets) translation of hard academic science to, well, chain-procrastinators like me.

Oxybenzone is an chemical ingredient that shields against ultraviolet radiation, often present in sunscreen lotions. The specific oxybenzone studied in the article is benzophenone-3 (BP-3). An estimated 6 thousand - 14 thousand tonnes of sunscreen is released into areas surrounding coral reefs annually, both directly through swimmers, and indirectly through wastewater discharges from coastal development, e.g. hotel sewerage systems. Many of these lotions contain 1-10% BP-3, putting roughly 40% of coral reefs at exposure.

The experimental results of the study identified several toxicity mechanisms resulting from exposure of juvenile corals to BP-3, including DNA damage to coral larvae, reducing juvenile survival and resilience to other stressors, such as rising sea-surface temperatures under climate change. This changed the larvae of the coral species Stylophora pistillata from being healthy and mobile, to deformed and sessile - as shown in Figure 2. Furthermore, corals exhibited increased susceptibility to bleach at lower temperatures with rising concentrations of oxybenzone. 

Figure 2. Panel A is a healthy juvenile planula, approxiamtely 5 mm in length. Panel B is a sessile deformed, sessile coral exposed to oxybenzone for 8 hours. Source (although originally used from Source₁).

The study identified 62 parts per trillion of BP-3 as (arguably) the lowest concentration required to see any toxicity effect on corals. Worryingly, many popular coastal tourist areas far exceed this amount, for example 1.4 parts per million were detected in Trunk Bay of the Virgin Islands National Park.

Having read both the original paper and numerous related press articles, besides the significant dramatizing of language in media outlets (damage to juvenile corals became “fatal to baby coral” in this expressive Guardian article), I noticed that a lot of them failed to mention a key part of the experimental study – that different coral species responded differently to BP-3 exposure. In other words, each of the 7 tested coral species exhibited differing levels of tolerance. For this study, slower growing coral species were naturally more tolerant than faster growing species. In fact the species Porites astreoides was about 38 x more tolerant to DP-3 than the most sensitive species, suggesting that not all coral species are being “killed off” by sunscreen lotions - in fact some may be more tolerant than we’d expect.

Nevertheless, given the results of the study, I would still argue that reducing coral exposure to BP-3 is critical for sustaining the resilience of coral reefs, especially given the global coral bleaching event predicted with this year’s El Nino. Even with varying tolerance levels, exposure would still encourage a community shift to a less diverse and thus less resilient coral community. Furthermore, being a photo-toxicant, Oxybenzone's toxicity is exacerbated in strong light, making tropical regions where coral loss is already in a critical state even more vulnerable. With shocking figures such as at least 80% of all corals reefs already lost in the Caribbean, we really can’t afford to lose anymore from these places whose economies depend on tourist-income from coral reefs. Already, concerns in some areas have resulted in banning of products containing oxybenzone in managed marine areas. In Akumal Bay for example, the study site discussed in my previous post, visitors are encouraged to use either no sunscreen or sunscreen without BP-3. Furthermore, public relations campaigns such as “Protect Yourself, Protect the Reef!” have been set up specifically to reduce chemical contamination by suncreen-wearing swimmers in high-tourism areas.

Downs, the leader of the original paper’s research team, stated:

“Any small effort to reduce oxybenzone pollution could mean that a coral reef survives a long, hot summer, or that a degraded areas recovers. Everyone wants to build coral nurseries for reef restoration, but this will achieve little if the factors that originally killed off the reef remain or intensify in the environment.”

Downs makes two important points in this quote. Firstly, that coral reefs experience numerous stressors, both anthropogenic (e.g. trampling, climate change) and natural (ENSO events). Oxybenzone in your sun lotions may not seem like too big a problem, but it reduces the resilience of coral reefs to much more acute large-scale stressors, such as ENSO events that cause mass, global-scale coral bleaching events. Secondly, instead of trying to fix the problem through technical schemes (such as breeding “super corals” (!), perhaps we should firstly try and reduce our destruction of corals reefs in the first place.

So, in reply to the Daily Mail article’s questioning title ‘Is your sunscreen killing off coral reefs?’ we can turn to one of the aptly put answers of the avid commenter ‘BirdMail’: “Along with all the other crap we put in our oceans, yes, yes it is.”

One Guardian article states that oxybenzone is present in ~3500 brands of sunscreen worldwide, including Coopertone and L’Oreal. As conscious consumers, we should read the product labels and opt for coral reef-safe sunscreen, as well as wearing rash guards/scuba wetsuits rather than sunscreen.

Mallorca’s Water Management Strategies: A Critical Review

In order to reduce the extreme seasonality in tourist arrivals to Mallorca, and thus the huge impact on the island’s water resources in a short space of time discussed in the last post, Mallorca's local government have made strong efforts to adopt a "quality tourism model" in the hotel sector. This post aims to critically assess this management strategy, as well as alternatives.

The quality tourism model moves away from Mallorca’s typical mass tourism high rise high-density hotels that we all know and love, towards residential tourism in the form of large second homes. Aimed at wealthier tourists, this tourist accommodation is characterised by numerous water fixtures, particularly irrigated gardens, swimming pools and golf courses. The model takes an off-season strategy with higher open months annually, aimed at reducing seasonality.

This model has been strongly supported by Mallorca’s public administration since the mid-1990s, whose actions include reducing the need for environmental requirements in planning. For example, Law 6/2009 states that reports by hydrological planning sectors to ensure a good water supply are no longer required, in order to save administration processing time for planning and building residential tourist plots. Ultimately this amounts to a reduction in the government’s role in tourism planning - which doesn't bode well for the success of sustainable tourism.

Does It Really Work?

Since its implementation, there has been much scepticism regarding the quality tourism model’s effectiveness, in both effectively managing water resources and reducing seasonality of tourist water demand.

Per person, the quality model has greater water consumption than the mass tourism model. This is largely due to it's proliferation of garden irrigation, which accounts for >70% of quality tourist areas' summer water consumption. Furthermore, rather than reducing the strong seasonality in water demand, the high numbers of water fixtures (such as swimming pools) create a constant demand for water and additional annual peaks in water demand. This is exacerbated by the promotion of off-season tourism and greater open months annually which lead to peaks even in January which was previously the island's month of minimum water consumption. This acts to just increase Mallorca’s total water consumption, increasing it's vulnerability to potential climate change induced water shortages in the future.

Alternatives

Water supply can be increased through desalination, which in Mallorca accounted for 17% of the natural freshwater resources in 2014. Yet desalination has been critiqued as a “sustainability fix”. It has a very high energy demand, and it has been argued that the massive construction costs (e.g. 14,551,578 Euros for one plant in Palma, Mallorca) have contributed to Spanish state's financial crisis. Furthermore, the relatively high costs of desalinated water have lead to it's commodification and thus privatisation of public water supplies. For example, in Mallorca's Calvia municipality all water companies were publically owned until the 1990s, whereas now only one still is.

Overall, I would argue that rather than focus on technical fixes such as desalination, which come with their own environmental and economic problems, Mallorca should focus on more efficient management of the tourism sector's water demand. Although desalination can help increase water supply in the short-term solution, the root cause lies in reduction of water supply through strong seasonality in tourist arrivals and contamination of groundwater supplies, as discussed in my last post. Clearly, the quality tourism model acts to exacerbate the problem rather than solve it, therefore alternative strategies such as higher water efficiency standards in hotels and re-use of water should be considered. Furthermore, contamination of existing water supplies should be reduced through increased environmental accountability checks of hotels. The government should take a leading role rather than it's current reduction in involvement, as it has the power to both coordinate and implement the required policies and measures.

Trouble in Paradise Part 1: Tourism’s Contribution to Mallorca’s Water Crisis

Greetings curious readers! I trust you are well! Today’s post aims to explore the link between tourism and freshwater scarcity on an island I’m sure several of you will hold very dear to your hearts after last year’s field course – Mallorca! Mallorca is a particularly relevant case study regarding tourism and water use as it’s experiencing the freshwater shortages and problems many tourism-intense islands will probably have to face in the near future. The island has the highest water consumption in the Balearics (~82.5% of their total water consumption), yet it's water resource is scarce. This is the same for most small Mediterranean and Pacific Islands where, unfortunately, a big proportion of global tourism is concentrated. According to the Falkenmark Index, Mallorca’s freshwater availability lies well below the threshold of total water scarcity throughout the entire year, meaning that the island's demand for water surpasses the long-term sustainable yield of it's natural water resources. This in turn has resulted in unsustainable over-exploitation of the freshwater, particularly groundwater, especially from unregulated users.

So how has tourism contributed to this?

Tourism is the number one economic sector for Mallorca, accounting for about 48% (almost ½!) of the Balearic's GDP. Although tourism accounted for about 12% of the Balearic Island’s total water consumption in 2011, the sector's demand is rising much more rapidly than the biggest water consumer: agriculture. For example, the tourism sector's water consumption increased by a huge 156% in the Balearic Islands’ from 1980-95, as opposed to a 22% fall for agriculture.

Furthermore, the pressure on Mallorca’s water supplies from tourism is really concentrated in a short space of time. Both Mallorca's annual precipitation and peak in tourist arrivals exhibit a strong seasonality - the problematic part being that the two do not in any way coincide. The 4 driest summer months experience under 10% of the year's rainfall and really high evapotranspiration rates as well as over ½ of all tourist arrivals (as illustrated in Figure 1). Thus tourism acts to superimpose the island's yearly periods of highest water demand and lowest natural water availability.

Figure 1. Mallorca's annual tourist arrivals distribution for the years 2001-2009. Source.

Furthermore, the absence of long-term surface water resources on the island means groundwater is the main renewable freshwater, yet even this is unreliable due its dependence on the island’s highly variable precipitation. Even over a decade ago, researchers were highlighting the link between tourism and groundwater resource stress, pointing out that the most overexploited aquifers are usually located in tourist resorts.

Since then, the argument continues, with more recent papers arguing overextraction due to high summer tourist consumption has caused lowering of the groundwater table and water quality via saltwater intrusion. Other negative impacts of the tourist pressure on water quality include nitrate infiltration due to overuse of fertilisers and pesticides in maintaining hotel gardens and golf courses. Overall this results in a reduction in total available drinking water (and subsequent increase in extraction cost) for both the tourism sector and the local residents. In the future, this state of water scarcity combined with increasing occurrence of drought under climate change could lead to conflicts between different sectors and the local residents. For example, Bali, another tourism-intense water-scarce island, is currently facing a water crisis due to intense tourism development, with groundwater resources being reduced to critical levels, causing conflicts between local villagers who need water for farming and the tourist sector, which uses up a whopping 65% of the island’s water supply yet makes up 80% of the island’s economy. Although the tourism usage rate is much higher than for Mallorca, climate change will likely reduce the island's total water supplies, meaning it could be facing a similar situation soon.

Tune into the next post for an analysis of water management strategies being taken by the tourism sector in Mallorca to reduce this problem!