The “net zero” bandwagon is crowded:
ompanies, cities and entire countries have taken the pledge to reduce their carbon footprints, setting deadlines decades into the future for balancing out their emissions in a race to keep the globe from heating to disastrous levels.
More newcomers signed on in the run-up to COP26, the recent UN climate summit in Glasgow. Even heavy users of fossil fuels – including travel companies – are getting on board. Airlines tout their plans in calls with investors. Cruise lines highlight their ambitions.
More than 300 companies, destinations and other tourism players signed on to the Glasgow Declaration for Climate Action in Tourism, committing to submit climate action plans within 12 months that detail efforts to halve emissions by 2030 and reach net zero no later than 2050.
These pledges are crucial to the effort to stabilise the globe’s warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, the most ambitious goal outlined in the…