Australia must tackle climate change with its regional neighbours.
A report in The Courier Mail says that Australian Tourism Export Council’s Matthew Hingerty says that Australia must team with its Pacific neighbours to tackle climate change impacts on tourism, with the council managing director urging Federal Minister Fran Bailey to go one step further than her announcement of a taskforce to fast track development of an action plan on climate change.
Ms Bailey, who announced the plan after a Tourism Minister’s Council on Friday, said she was committed to delivering the action plan well before its two-year target.
“The tourism industry has been a pioneer in addressing climate change and is determined to do even more,” Ms Bailey said.
But Mr Hingerty said a regional response was needed especially to tackle the growing “anti-travel” movement in the UK and Europe which was attempting to discourage people from flying as a way of reducing carbon emissions.
“With 733,300 Britons coming to Australia last financial year, the UK is our second largest market and while we fully support the growing global awareness of climate change issues, we need a responsible and sensible approach – and this does not include encouraging people to abandon travel,” Mr Hingerty said.
Ms Bailey has been outspoken against recent ads in UK newspapers claiming flying is one of the single most important decisions you can take to stop climate change.
The full page ads with characters including an evil airline executive and a penguin from fictitious organisations Penguins Against Climate Change and Spurt urge people to abandon long-haul travel.
Ms Bailey said such campaigns threatened to erode visitor numbers from one of our best yielding overseas markets.
She said it was Australia’s duty to protect its natural assets for future generations, adding, “To address climate change, we need to work together to protect the jobs of the half a million Australians employed in the tourism industry.”
Queensland Tourism Minister Margaret Keech was supportive of a clear focus, adding, “But it should be leveraged off what Queensland is already doing through its tourism strategy”.
Tourism and Transport Forum Australia managing director Christopher Brown said the tourism industry was caught in a pincer movement between the impact of climate change on natural tourism assets and changing travel patterns.
The TTF plans to lead a delegation to the UN World Tourism Organisation’s Climate Change Summit in Davo, Switzerland, in October.
“The overall approach to climate change needs to be about action, not just hot air,” Mr Brown said.
“It’s important that the tourism industry works together and collaborates with government to move swiftly form educated discussion and debate about climate change to action.”
Report by The Mole
John Alwyn-Jones
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