Figures from the Environmental Protection Agency show that 29% of global greenhouse gas emissions in 2021 came from transportation, including flights, trains and cars.
According to Paloma Zapata - CEO of Sustainable Travel International, an organization that develops strategies with governments and businesses - flights typically produce at least half of a trip's total carbon footprint.
"We are in the biggest race of our time: the race to net-zero carbon emissions," Zapata tells Business Insider. "And when we travel, we consume a lot of resources."
A carbon passport would regulate travelers' emissions
Alex Hawkins, strategic foresight editor at The Future Laboratory and author of the report, explains to Business Insider that the concept could become necessary if we don't work toward a more sustainable world.
"The carbon passport proposal is based on the idea of personal carbon emission rights," Hawkins says, adding that it would "impose a limit on the amount of carbon people can emit over a certain period of time."
Hawkins acknowledges that this is not a new concept. The UK Parliament outlined a similar idea in a 2008 study entitled Personal Carbon Trading. "Carbon passports have taken that idea a step further" because they would involve tracking and limiting carbon emissions from travel, in particular, Hawkins adds.
The study noted that people should limit their carbon consumption to 2.3 tons per year to mitigate the climate crisis. The average U.S. citizen emits 16 tons per year, according to the report.
In reality, a CO₂ passport would be difficult to implement.
Hawkins and Matt Berna, president of Intrepid in the Americas, don't believe a carbon passport is a quick fix.
"This is the future we don't want," Hawkins tells Business Insider. "We put the concept forward as a provocation to say that if we're not taking decisive action against the climate crisis, we're going to potentially see our freedoms curtailed in different ways."
Berna points out that it's just one idea that could raise awareness about sustainable travel.
For it to work, this passport would have to be created alongside new legislation and technological innovations, Berna and Hawkins point out.
Experts agree that making the concept a reality poses challenges.
"The idea is good in theory, but in terms of logistics, I don't see how it could be done," Anna Abelson, an associate professor at New York University's Jonathan M. Tisch Center of Hospitality, tells Business Insider of how tracking would work.
It would be difficult to get enough people involved, Hawkins added, and "to make it work on an international level, it would take collaboration from many stakeholders."
"If we were to put certain limits on our individual carbon emissions, that would have different repercussions for each of us," he says.
Zapata believes that restriction could be alienating and ineffective.
"We should inspire people to make changes and create an environment where those changes happen organically," by offering more sustainable options and raising awareness of green travel, he says.
Abelson, Berna and Zapata suggest some strategies to solve tourism's climate problem, such as airlines using alternative fuel sources and governments regulating carbon emissions in the aviation industry.
According to Hawkins, it would be more effective to push the green transportation mentioned in the report.
"Sustainable aviation is innovating a lot," he assures Business Insider.
Airlines are starting to use sustainable aviation fuel made from resources such as garbage and vegetable oil. Data from the International Air Transport Association shows that sustainable aviation fuel emits up to 80% less carbon dioxide than typical jet fuel.
According to Berne, the carbon passport concept raises another issue: not all travel emissions come from transportation.
"The next piece we have to solve is how we travel when we get there, how we spend our money and where we stay," he notes.
Berna and Zapata share some tips for limiting carbon emissions as a traveler, such as eating locally sourced food, staying in sustainable accommodations that use renewable energy, and opting for fewer long trips rather than several shorter ones.
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Hawkins adds that visiting off-the-beaten-path destinations can help mitigate over-tourism, while spreading the benefits of travel elsewhere.
"For example, Greece and Italy are in massive demand," he says. "So now we're starting to see destinations like Albania come into play."
To track the carbon emissions of your flight, Berna suggests booking through Google Flights, which has included emissions levels from 2021. The Google Flights website indicates that its carbon emissions are based on estimates from the European Environment Agency.
Another useful tool is Native, an online emissions calculator where you can enter your travel plans and get an estimate of the carbon footprint of your trip.
Author: Joey Hadden, Business Insider
