carbonneutraltourism.co.uk

If you are looking for a short and straightforward explanation of climate change and carbon offsetting you could visit Defra’s website.

Long haul destinations which rely on overseas tourists could become less attractive as ‘carbon neutrality’ becomes a mainstream issue in both the public and private sectors.

As governments introduce or increase regulations/’carbon tax’ the cost of travelling to long haul destinations such as Thailand and Australia could increase making these destinations  less attractive. The long term economic knock-effect on local economies could be considerable (particularly for those destinations which rely heavily on overseas tourism).  At the same time some consumers are also making a personal choice not to take holidays which involve taking a long or short haul flight.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports that the carbon offsetting market in Australia is booming with the market in New South Wales reportedly being valued at $500 million.  At Carbon Planet, an Australian offsetting company, the number of staff has increased from 3 to 38 in a 12 month period.

CNN Money reports that “Last year the worldwide market for such voluntary offsets reached $110 million, up 175 percent from 2005, according to ICF International, a Virginia consultancy that expects demand to grow to $40 billion by 2010. “It’s just the takeoff point of the market,” says Abyd Karmali, ICF’s managing director for Europe.”   However, the article goes on to look at the ‘darkside’ of carbon offsetting which has resulted in farmers being forced off of their land.  Read more here.

In taking steps to reduce their carbon footprint consumers have to know that the scheme they are buying carbon credits from is genuine but it appears confusion often exists when people visit carbon offset websites.  The San Jose Mercury has written an article on this subject.

The Los Angeles Times has publiched an interesting article on ‘carbon neutrality’ and the different schemes there are to offset you carbon emissions.   The article notes “For all the money spent, nobody can say if the offsets have done much to alleviate global warming.”

The Wall Street Journal reports that Morgan Stanley have launched a new service which offers clients a carbon auditing and offsetting service.

If you are thinking about purchasing carbon offsets The Climiate Group provide their top ten tips here.

Nature Air based in Costa Rica have an interesting background.  The company was originally called Travel Air founded by two Alaskan pilots.   A nature based consultancy (www.naturegate.com) working on sustainable tourism projects in Central America heard that Travel Air was for sales and along with a group aviation experts formed Nature Air.  The airline which flies NGO teams, researchers, ecologists, environmentalists and foresters expanded throughout Central American offering new destinations for scuba divers, swimmers, surfers and families.

Nature Air has a carbon emissions programme and they have selected two sustainable programs in Costa Rica which provide clean energy through solar and wind farms to help offset the CO2 they produce.

Defra (sorry I can’t find the exact reference but hopefully this will suffice) report that the voluntary carbon offset market was valued at £60 million in 2006 and that is likely to grow to £250million by 2009!