CLIMATE CHANGE
The Road to Net Zero Climate change is happening now. How can tourism businesses reduce their carbon footprint and contribute to Net Zero? Peter Cooper, partner and head of the energy team at law firm Stephens Scown LLP, has six tips for tourism businesses to go green.
With average global temperatures soaring to unprecedented levels, extreme weather events and natural disasters are on the rise. The world will soon face food / water insecurity and environmental degradation on a potentially irreversible scale. Climate change is no longer someone else’s problem. URGENT CLIMATE ACTION NEEDED NOW At COP26, for the first time, countries agreed to take action against fossil fuel and meet the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C by the middle of this century. A new global agreement, the Glasgow Climate Pact, was entered into. Whilst this agreement is not legally binding, it has set the foundations for the global climate change agenda moving forward. Leaders pledged for greater cuts to CO2 emissions and devised a plan to phase down the global use of coal, which is responsible for 40% of annual CO2 emissions. Businesses are being urged to join the UN’s Race to Zero Campaign – the world’s largest alliance of businesses, cities, regions, leading universities and investors who have pledged to eliminate their net carbon emissions by 2050. One third of the UK’s FTSE 100 companies have recently signed up. Apple and Microsoft have previously announced plans for carbon neutrality by 2030, whilst a recent survey of 502 UK businesses found half of them have the same aim. However, we all need to take action now to achieve this. This is not a problem for future generations to solve – immediate, unprecedented and sustained reductions in carbon emissions are needed now. So here are six ways your business can ‘go green’ and avoid falling behind the Net Zero curve.
26
TALKING TOURISM
WINTER 2021/22
