Written by Media Relations. This is an excerpt from an article originally published on Waterloo News.
New Panel will support the tourism industry's transition to net-zero emissions
University of Waterloo Professor Daniel Scott was one of three leading experts who launched a new international Tourism Panel on Climate Change (TPCC) at COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt. The panel represents a new era of global collaboration that will support the tourism industry's transition to net-zero emissions and climate resilient tourism development.
Professor Scott and his peers, Susanne Becken and Geoffrey Lipman, presented the 'Foundation Framework' for the TPCC, which brings together more than 60 leading experts from over 30 countries and across academia, business, and civil society, including Dr. Michelle Rutty, Canada Research Chair and assistant professor in Waterloo's Department of Geography and Environmental Management.
"The TPCC is dedicated to a new era of climate resilient tourism that is on track to achieve zero emissions by 2050 and is successfully adapting to the accelerating impacts of climate change through actions that broadly advance the UN's Sustainable Development Goals."
- Daniel Scott, University Research Chair and professor in Waterloo's Department of Geography and Environmental Management
The TPCC leaders emphasized that the incredible power of tourism's positive contribution to human development cannot be realized if we fail on climate change. Without action, climate change will adversely transform tourism in the years and decades ahead, and the mission of the TPCC is "to inform and rapidly advance science-based climate action across the global tourism system in support of the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement".