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Abstract The Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change represents the state of knowledge of anthropogenic disruption to the climate system, its diverse ecosystem and societal impacts, and the imperative for and challenges of mitigation and adaptation responses. It is foundational for global climate policymaking. This paper examines the place of tourism in AR6 and reviews its key findings for tourism’s future. Overall, tourism related content declined relative to previous assessments. While notable improvements in content occurred for Africa, visible knowledge gaps remain in the tourism growth regions of South America, Middle East, and South Asia. There remains limited discussion of many impacts, and very limited understanding of integrated impacts and the effectiveness of adaptation strategies at the destination scale. The contribution of tourism to global emissions was omitted, however tourism was discussed in the context of luxury emissions and just transitions. Tourism is repeatedly identified in solution space discussions, particularly for ecosystem protection, but without consideration of the future of tourism in a rapidly decarbonizing and climate disrupted economy. With only 21% of published climate change and tourism literature in the AR6 review period cited, tourism academics should elevate tourism content and engagement in future assessments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change poses complex challenges and addressing these requires increasing integration across policy domains. This research developed a framework to assess policy integration between the tourism and climate change domains by examining coverage, scope, materiality and alignment. A database of 101 policy documents was compiled, representing 61 countries over 17 years. Only 37 documents covered the tourism-climate nexus substantially, suggesting climate change has not yet become a priority for tourism policy makers. Considering that tourism makes considerable contributions to and is substantially impacted by climate change, the observed gaps in tourism policy need to be addressed. The paper concludes with some minimum expectations for policy integration, including examples of good practice, and suggests that more effort is required to achieve climate change policy integration in tourism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustained international diplomatic efforts culminated in the signing of the Paris Climate Agreement by 196 countries in December 2015. This paper provides an overview of the key provisions of the agreement that are most relevant to the tourism sector: much strengthened and world-wide participation in greenhouse gas emission reduction ambitions, an enduring framework for increased ambitions over time, improved transparency in emissions reporting and a greater emphasis on climate risk management through adaptation. The declared carbon emission reduction ambitions of the tourism sector and international aviation are found to be broadly compatible with those of the Paris Agreement, however, claims of reduced emission intensity in the tourism sector since 2005 and a roadmap by which emission reduction ambitions for 2020 and 2035 might realistically be achieved both remain equivocal. The need for international tourism leadership to improve sectoral scale emission monitoring capacity to meet the increasing requirements for transparency, convene an assessment of risks from climate change and climate policy, foster greater collaboration on destination climate resilience and accelerate technological, policy and social innovation to put tourism firmly on a pathway to the low-carbon economy are all emphasized, as is the need for dialogue between tourism and tourism researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2013–2014 was the most comprehensive analysis of anthropogenic climate change, its impacts, and potential responses. It concluded that climate change is “unequivocal” and human activities are the dominant cause. Avoidance of “dangerous” climate change will require sustained substantial reductions of emissions by mid-century and that net emissions decrease to zero before 2100. This paper describes, reviews and explains the place of tourism in AR5 and AR5's relevance for tourism's future, including impacts, adaptation, vulnerabilities, and mitigation. Tourism's position in AR5 has strengthened, particularly with respect to the recognition of transboundary impacts, the sector's contribution to climate change and its mitigation requirements. Major regional knowledge gaps persist. A lack of understanding of the integrated impacts of climate change and the effectiveness of adaptation strategies potentially hinders the development of resilient tourism operations and destinations. Uncertainties regarding tourist response to climate change impacts and mitigation policy impede predictions of tourism demand. The implications of different decarbonization pathways for the future of international tourism represent a key knowledge gap. The limited response of key tourism organizations to AR5 contributes to the risks climate change poses to the sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explains the evolution of research into tourism and climate change, illustrating how early work concentrated on the impact of climate change on tourism, whereas current work also explores the impact of tourism on climate change. It goes on to elaborate a research agenda on both topics. The need to open up tourism research to other fields and professional worlds - such as climatology, the International Panel on Climate Change and transport research - is stressed, as is the need to organise the research community on a global basis, with more collaborative and comparative research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]