Climate Change and Tourism: The need for a transformative research agenda

Climate Change and Tourism: The need for a transformative research agenda

08/25/2026 - 14:12

Climate change and tourism are deeply interconnected. Tourism is highly vulnerable to climate-related crises, as travel can become restricted, more difficult, or more expensive. Simultaneously, the sector contributes significantly to climate change and can undermine the adaptive capacity of destinations. Tourism is responsible for 8% to 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions, and despite commitments to reduce its footprint, emissions continue to rise, making the Glasgow target of halving emissions by 2030 increasingly unrealistic (Becken & Scott, 2024). Despite the urgency, the sector still lacks a credible mitigation strategy.
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This article was written for Uncover magazine – From Global to Ground (10th edition). You can read the full magazine here. 

Author: Ioanna Farsari holds a PhD in sustainable tourism policy from the University of Surrey (UK) and she is currently an Associate Professor at Dalarna University (Sweden). She is the coordinator of the ATLAS SIG on Climate Change and Tourism.

Transport remains the major challenge. Tourist transport emissions have increased by 65% in the past thirty years, with air travel accounting for 75% of these emissions (TPCC, 2023). Industry techno-optimism regarding sustainable aviation fuels is constrained by climate justice concerns, slow technological progress, and accelerating air-travel demand, delaying meaningful emission reductions (Gössling et al., 2026). While emissions from accommodation, food and activities have remained stable, tourism growth risks offsetting these gains (TPCC, 2023). Scholars therefore emphasise the need for major structural changes supported by governments, industry and researchers. Grassroots and community-led efforts are also seen as vital for enabling sustainability transformations and redirecting development pathways.

In this climate of responsibility and urgency influenced by social movements like Fridays for Future, the ATLAS Special Interest Group (SIG) on Climate Change and Tourism was established. Founded as a grassroots ATLAS initiative, the SIG works to strengthen research, education and collaboration through transformative scholarship.

Challenges and ethical issues
Transformative research is a transdisciplinary, place-sensitive and collaborative approach grounded in an ethics of care for the planet. It emphasises critical self-reflection, requiring researchers to examine how their own practices may reinforce unsustainability or foster positive change. Insights from the SIG’s first workshop (Farsari et al., 2024) showed that transformation concerns academics’ travel practices, their responsibility to model sustainable behaviour, their capacity to influence tourism practitioners and policy-makers, and their role as educators guiding students through sustainability transitions. 

Climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic have further exposed global inequalities, with vulnerable communities experiencing disproportionate impacts (Jamal et al., 2021). Hopes that the pandemic would lead to more just mobility patterns have not materialised, as international travel emissions have risen again (TPCC, 2023). Most tourism emissions originate in a small number of wealthy countries whose residents travel frequently, while vulnerable nations bear the greatest impacts and face disproportionate mitigation costs. Transformative, transdisciplinary approaches such as co-production of knowledge and design thinking, offer ways to address these injustices.

Case example: ’Walk the talk’ - academic flying
Universities are major GHGs emitters, due to air travel, and in Sweden, most top‑emitting public institutions are universities (SUHF, 2026). Academic mobility is often regarded as essential, creating a ‘mobility ideology’ that links air travel with academic success. Reducing academia’s emissions requires mindset shifts, particularly among early career researchers (ECRs), and critical reflection on non-essential travel.

Responding to this need, SIG members initiated research on academic mobility. Formica and Farsari (2025) used critical discourse analysis to examine the ‘social wrong’ of academic hypermobility. Interviews with doctoral students and ECRs revealed hierarchical expectations (seniors expecting juniors to deliver) and norms defining the ‘successful mobile academic’. While mobility supports creativity, networking, and belonging, it also generates stress, reduced focus and climate hypocrisy. ECRs identify online meetings, alternative travel modes and institutional policies as key strategies for rethinking academic (im)mobility and reducing emissions.

Sources
Farsari, I., Bakker, M. & Carvalho, L. (2024) Climate change and tourism: scholars’ reflections on transformative research, Anatolia, https://doi.org/10.1080/13032917.2023.2276955 

Formica, C. & Farsari, I (2025) A Critical Discourse Analysis  of academic mobility among Early Career Researchers (ECRs) and PhD’s students in Tourism Studies in Sweden. Presented in ATLAS Annual Conference “Tourist destinations at a crossroads - Space, community, products, politics and evolutionary processes in the age of transitions”, Vila-seca, Catalonia, Spain, June 17-20, 2025. 

Gössling, S., Hopkins, D., Schweiggart, N., Cohen, S., Cocolas, N., & Higham, J. (2026). Beyond the Rhetoric of “Sustainable Aviation”: A Counterfactual Confrontation. Journal of Travel Research, 0(0).

Jamal, T. & Higham, J. (2021) Justice and ethics: towards a new platform for tourism and sustainability, Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 29 (2-3), 143-157, DOI: 10.1080/09669582.2020.1835933

SUHF (2026) Hållbara tjänsteresor - Vägledning för Sveriges lärosäten, REK 2026:3, Dnr SU-850-0057-21. Available on line REK-2026-3-Vagledning-hallbara-tjansteresor-SUHF.pdf

Tourism Panel on Climate Change (TPCC) (2023)  S. Becken, D. Scott (Eds.), Tourism and climate change Stocktake 2023. Available online https://tpcc.info