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Climate Change, Tourism and Social Justice

Some Reflections from the South

By T. T. Sreekumar

Both global tourism and domestic tourism are deeply interlinked and pose serious threats to the livelihood options of local communities. They also have enormous impacts on carbon emissions and consequently on global warming. In most discussions, the complicity of the national capital and conspicuous consumption of the new middle class does not get adequate attention although it is both politically and economically a significant phenomenon to reckon with. It is our experience that the local struggles against exploitative tourism will have to strategically respond to the new phenomenon.

What is also less debated is the localized impact of climate changes, particularly how local communities will be impacted and in the eventuality of erupting disasters, how they would be able to cope with the problem of social and economic reconstruction. Moreover, it is difficult to capture the exact connections of global-local linkages of climate changes.

Responses and responsibilities

Tourism is an industry that affects the lives of common people in a multitude of ways. The tourism industry initially attempted to create the self image of a victim of climate change. Concerns were mostly regarding the likely threats that climate change held out to the sustainability of tourism destinations. But subsequent research and introspection rightly highlighted the role of sending markets in aggravating the negative impacts of tourism on climate change. The patterns of consumption at home and abroad by citizens and manufacturers in Northern countries have been under scrutiny by the developing world for their lion share of contribution to CO2 emissions, ever since the discourse on climate change began to take root. 

Trends such as increased air traffic from North to South, forced liberalisation of Third World economies for supporting conspicuous consumption of tourists by way of over expanding luxury hotels, overcrowding of infrastructure facilities in tourism destinations and diversion of local resources for meeting demands of the tourism industry have all aggravated in recent years. All these factors have a long term nefarious impact on climate change, with disastrous consequences for local communities. A statement issued by the Ecumenical Coalition on Tourism (ECOT) summarizes the argument as follows: "Climate change is affecting us all - the Global North and the Global South - but the injustice is quite apparent. Carbon emissions of the North are far higher per person than from the Global South. Unfortunately, the impact of Northern-induced climate change - due to ‘luxury emissions' from global trade and tourism - is far more tangible and visible in the South."

While Global Tourism significantly contributes to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, through emissions from transport, accommodation and related activities, the solutions mooted by the industry have been inadequate and irresponsible. It was with great pain and bafflement that the developing world received the news of European Union's decision to enforce carbon trading. The market argument has been overstretched and it fails to address the issue of social justice in any satisfactory manner. It helps legitimize increased exploitation of southern energy sources by the North, a strategy that clearly smacks of neo colonial economic subjugation. 

New middle class and new challenges

The emergence of a new middle class in developing counties - particularly in countries such as India and China where liberalisation and globalisation have brought highly skewed impacts on wealth and welfare of the people - has resulted in deep changes in consumption patterns, lifestyles and world outlook. This has created new demands for travel and tourism in developing countries.

Furthermore, the phenomenon has also catapulted some of the developing countries into the group of newly emerging sending markets. The travel patterns from these markets are not yet clearly understood. It is likely that it has increased the burden of destinations in other developing countries themselves. In July 2007, the Tourism Secretary of the Philippines identified the "Chinese market" as the fastest growing among the top five sending markets for the Philippines while Korea emerged as the leading sending market. The United States was the second biggest provider of tourists, while Japan came in at third. China and Taiwan were listed at the top fourth and fifth position. Hong Kong, Singapore, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom ranked from sixth to 10th. The case of the Philippines will not be an exception in Asia.

Sustainable mobility in the newly emerging countries and markets is not an isolated issue. It is closely linked to the imposition of the neo liberal development paradigm in developing countries that the tourism industry has been steadfastly clinging on. It raises new questions of inclusion in deliberative democratic practices and also challenges us to redefine the meaning and import of participatory decision making processes in local destinations as well as international negotiations.

Climate change, tourism and social justice

Over recent years it has become increasingly clearer that the poor people in the Third World are being forced from their homes by flash floods, draughts, quakes and other natural calamities. Seasons that the local farmers are so familiar with and which define their life cycle are fast disappearing, causing displacement and a sense of loss of rootedness with nature. I come from an Indian village where the major instrument of agricultural production is rainfall. There is no major irrigation infrastructure. The peasants depend entirely on the regularity of seasons. In the villages, a popular oral tradition preserves an agricultural song that describes how the seasons were equitably distributed among three kings when they got the "boon of rain" from the God. The three kings, instead or warring over "rights to climate" decided to share it following the principle of "each according to his needs." They believed that the erratic changes in climate will cause "diseases, scarcity, price rise and above all erosion of social values." The sense of justice that formed an integral part of the local understanding of climate and climate change comes out clearly in the narrative of this agricultural song called "krishi geetha" (krishi means agriculture, geetha means song). It is precisely for this reason that the climate change and climate shocks, causing large scale migration, insecurity and conflicts, are creating enormous anxieties for the rural poor. An appropriate compensatory mechanism that can address this issue has not yet evolved.

Dr. T T Sreekumar is Assistant Professor of Communication & New Media Programme at the National University of Singapore.

(1.037 words, 87 lines, September 2008)