I think the United Nations
still doesn't get it. In August I received a general invitation
to the Second International Conference on Climate Change and Tourism
in Switzerland. This is a big event for the United
Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO). They're struggling
to be seen as relevant in a world that increasingly recognizes that
climate change is a serious problem.
But their solution? Fly a bunch of people to Davos
for a little meet and greet.
The list of invited speakers contains all of the characters you
would expect to find on an International Court of Justice indictment
for crimes against the planet, but instead of listing names from
the military-industrial complex, we see the names of the petro-tourism
complex, including airlines, ministries of tourism and railroads.
To their credit, the organizers do recommend that participants use
the train to get from the major airports to Davos. But this looks
like a case where an online virtual conference would be perfect.
Why are they asking participants to fly thousands of miles to attend
a moderated conference? Have any of them heard that airline travel
is a contributor to greenhouse gases? Have they heard that tourism
is discretionary travel?
Here's some free advice for the UNWTO: check out the EPA's Green
Meetings Resources or Planeta.com's Green
Events to reduce the environmental footprint of the conference.
Even better, switch to an all-virtual on-line conference. If the
presentations and the Q & A will be moderated anyway, why not
run the conference on-line with the same moderators. Spread the
on-line conference over a couple of weeks (Instead of 3 days) to
let more people squeeze it into their busy schedules. And at the
very least, let us know who will be blogging the conference and
reporting on any steps to control that footprint.
Their official slogan is 'UNWTO - Committed to Tourism, Travel and
Millennium Development Goals' so I guess they choose to ignore any
sense of responsibility for burning A1 jet fuel and adding greenhouse
gases to the upper atmosphere. Maybe their real slogan should be
"We're changing the climate, one discretionary trip at a time!"
One reason I'm coming down hard on UNWTO is that another e-mail
arrived at the same time with some recent research findings suggesting
that we may be approaching the tipping point on melting off the
Greenland ice sheets. UNWTO members might see that as a positive
step -- opening up all that new land for travel and tourism. But
the melting ice could raise sea levels an estimated seven meters
(see Issue 2617 of New
Scientist, 16 August 2007, page 13). Yes, that's seven meters.
This conference tags the UNWTO
as part of the problem, not part of the solution. I'm sure there
will be all sorts of tips on how to tap tourists to pay off their
planetary travel guilt with carbon offsets. But wouldn't the planet
be better off if all of these people stayed home and donated their
guilt money to planetary purposes, or better yet, demanded that
their governments support carbon-neutral solutions? It's so disappointing
to see this kind of behavior from a UN organization. |
