In coming decades, warmer weather, rising seas, more intense storms will literally wipe some idyllic destinations off the tourist map, experts say.
COLOMBO: Enjoy your exotic Asian beach or skiing holidays while you can. In coming decades, warmer weather, rising seas, more intense storms, even changes in ocean currents will literally wipe some idyllic destinations off the tourist map, experts say. Thousands, and possibly millions, of jobs could be lost.
Tourism accounts for 35 per cent of the Maldives’ annual GDP of around $800 million. But the Indian Ocean island chain, on average just 1.5 metres above sea level, risks disappearing within generations if sea levels rise in line with the UN climate panel’s predictions.
Experts from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change meeting in Brussels on Friday issued the bleakest UN warning yet about the impacts of global warming.
Scientists say climate change could also devastate Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. The tourism industry fears the natural wonder could badly damaged or even extinct in 40 years. The 2,300 km reef is Australia’s top tourist drawcard, attracting 4.9 million visitors a year, generating about 60,000 jobs and more than $4.5 billion a year for the economy.
The palm-fringed beaches of Goa, which attract hundreds of thousands of tourists every year, are also extremely vulnerable. By 2030, beach erosion and inundation of shoreline properties was likely to be a serious problem, according to a recent report by Halifax Travel Insurance. Another report by British insurance company Churchill and the Centre for Future Studies in September listed Goa alongside the Great Barrier Reef as among the top 10 destinations that might be taken off the tourist map by 2020.
Himalayan ski resorts such as Gulmarg, Auli and Narkanda could also be affected because higher temperatures mean the number of skiing days would be reduced. The danger of landslides also increased.
Shunji Takahashi, a forecaster with Japan’s Meteorological Agency, pointed to declining snow falls in parts of northwest and northern Japan, where many of the nation’s ski areas are located.
Beaches from Bondi in Sydney, to Fiji, Bali, Thailand and the Philippines are also under threat. In low-lying Singapore, half of the city’s man-made East Coast Beach has already disappeared due to erosion, prompting the government to look into building more sea walls along the beach to prevent damage from rising tides and stronger currents.
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