Global tourism, climate change and energy sustainability: assessing carbon reduction mitigating measures from the aviation industry

As many business activities—especially those associated with the energy-intensive industries—continue to be major sources of greenhouse gas emissions, and hence significantly contributing to global warming, there is a perceived need to identify ways to make business activities eventually carbon neutral. This paper explores the implications of a changing climate for the global tourism business and its intertwining global aviation industry that operates in a self-regulatory environment. Adopting a bibliometric analysis of the literature in the domain of global tourism and climate change (772 articles), the paper reveals the underlying sustainability issues that entail unsustainable energy consumption. The aviation industry as a significant source of carbon emission within the sector is then examined by analyzing the top 20 largest commercial airlines in the world with respect to its ongoing mitigating measures in meeting the Paris Agreement targets. While self-regulatory initiatives are taken to adopt Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF) as alternative fuel production and consumption for drastically reducing carbon emission, voluntary alignment and commitment to long-term targets remain inconsistent. A concerted strategic approach to building up complementary sustainable infrastructures among the global network of airports based in various international tourist destination cities to enable a measurable reduction in carbon emission is necessary to achieve a transformational adaptation of a business sector that is of essence to the recovery of the global economy while attempting to tackle climate change in a post-COVID-19 era.