2024 Declared Hottest Year On Record and Travel Emissions Set to Rise 

Our world was hotter in 2024 than any other year on record, the United Nations, the European Commission, and NASA said on Friday.

Greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere rose to record levels, and the average global temperature exceeded 1.5 degrees celsius above pre-industrial levels for the first time – that was the level agreed to almost decade to as part of a landmark climate agreement in Paris. 

Despite many efforts and pledges from within travel and tourism, UN Tourism projects that the emissions from this sector will rise 25% by 2030.

There are a variety of figures as to how much the travel and tourism industry emits. A recent study and the World Travel and Tourism Council puts the industry's impact at 8-9% of annual global emissions.

Figures from the European Commission's Copernicus programme show a rise in global temperatures. Credit: European Commission

“One can only feel sad, but at the same it has to spur us into action,” says Inge Huijbrechts, global senior vice president of sustainability at the Radisson Hotel Group.

The group has over 1,500 hotels in over 90 countries and is one of almost 900 businesses and organisations that signed a UN tourism led agreement in 2021, the Glasgow Declaration, to reduce emissions in the tourism sector.

Radisson has committed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by almost half by 2030. 

“The size of this challenge and the size of the reductions we need to do by 2030 is a real transformation,” Huijbrechts said.

There is progress, Huijbrechts said. Around 80 of the company's hotels are now running on 100% renew