Global and local challenges of tourism vs migration from the climate change perspective

Justas Kažys, Associate Professor at the Institute of Geosciences, Vilnius University, Lithuania gives the lecture Global and local challenges of tourism vs migration from the climate change perspective.

Abstract

The tourism industry has a key role to play in confronting the challenges of climate change. Rising temperatures, higher sea levels and degraded habitats will have serious impacts on almost every sub-sector of the tourism industry. But options exist to help the industry adapt to climate change. However, no country has yet developed a low-carbon tourism strategy, leaving the sector to find its own way to address climate change in the face of considerable uncertainties. The migration as a ‘forced tourism’ form could be analysed from the climate change perspective as well. Temporary migration as an adaptive response to climate stress is already apparent in many areas. But the picture is nuanced; the ability to migrate is a function of mobility and resources (both financial and social). Therefore, the international community needs to acknowledge formally the predicament of forced climate migrants.

The event is organized by the Faculty of Sociology, Anthropology and Folkloristics and The Institute of Life and Environmental Sciences Geography and Tourism Divison and is a part of the project Mobilities and Transnational Iceland.