While some hotels are serving climate-neutral meat from their own farms and heating with wood chips the tourism industry as a whole has a long way to go to reduce their carbon footprint.
In the northern German town of Ueckermünde, the Haffhus hotel and spa is a model among sustainability leaders in the tourism industry. The establishment derives its heating, cooling and electricity entirely from renewable sources — and even produces all its own energy. In 2018, the hotel cut its connection to the public power grid and has been self-sufficient ever since, says Dirk Klein, sustainability manager of the Haffhus.
Yet the entire tourism industry will have to make similar changes by 2045. According to the Climate Protection Act, Germany must then be greenhouse gas neutral by this date. This means there must be a balance between greenhouse gas emissions and the removal of such gasses from the atmosphere. Then, by 2050, Germany aims to go even further and achieve a negative emissions balance.
According to Germany’s Federal Statistical Office, the tourism industry accounts for only 2.6% of the country’s total greenhouse gas emissions. Nevertheless, the travel sector must also do its part to reach the target. The Federal Association of the German Tourism Industry, for example, recently stated that it is aware that the tourism industry has to approach the issue of climate protection and sustainability differently than it has in the past.
Indeed, achieving climate neutrality poses a major challenge, says Heinz-Dieter Quack, professor at the Institute for Tourism and Regional Research at Ostfalia University of Applied Sciences in the German city of Salzgitter. “Especially because tourism involves traveling.”Going to and from a vacation destination is usually what creates the majority of a tourist’s CO2 emissions. Since there’s unlikely to be climate-neutral air travel anytime soon, vacationers have to find alternatives, says Quack — like traveling by bus and train instead of plane.
Source : DW.Com
