Five Pathways for Climate Action in Tourism
Climate action becomes effective when ambition is translated into a structured process that destinations can understand, implement and develop over time.
Climate change presents tourism destinations with a complex challenge.
Reducing emissions is essential, but it is only one part of the transformation required.
Destinations also need to understand their environmental impact, respond to changing climatic conditions, protect and regenerate territorial resources, collaborate across sectors and identify the financial mechanisms that can make transformation possible.
The Glasgow Declaration Initiative, referenced by UN Tourism within its work on climate action, organises this transition around five strategic pathways:
Measure → Decarbonize → Regenerate → Collaborate → Finance
UN Tourism also highlights the growing importance of adaptation, reflecting the need for tourism destinations to respond not only to the causes of climate change but also to environmental changes already taking place.
For Coolvoyage Destinations, these pathways provide a useful framework for considering climate action from the perspective of sustainable destination development.
1. Measure — Understand before acting
Climate action begins with knowledge.
A destination needs to understand both the impact generated by tourism and the environmental conditions of the territory in which tourism takes place.
Measurement can include emissions, energy and water consumption, waste, mobility patterns and other environmental indicators.
But from a destination development perspective, measurement should be accompanied by territorial observation.
Which resources are under pressure?
How are visitor flows distributed?
How dependent is tourism on particular ecosystems or infrastructure?
Are environmental conditions changing?
Which parts of the local economy are particularly exposed?
Where is tourism creating value, and where is it increasing pressure?
The purpose of measurement is therefore not simply to generate data.
It is to create the knowledge required to make better development decisions.
What we do not understand, we cannot manage effectively.
2. Decarbonize — Reduce the impact of tourism
Tourism depends heavily on activities that generate greenhouse gas emissions.
Transport, accommodation, energy use, food supply chains and tourism activities all contribute to the sector’s carbon footprint.
Decarbonisation therefore requires action across the tourism value chain.
UN Tourism’s COP30 agenda explicitly connects tourism with low-emission approaches in energy, industry and transport, while also addressing sustainable food systems and climate-resilient infrastructure.
At destination level, this requires looking beyond individual businesses.
Mobility is a clear example.
A hotel may reduce its own emissions, but visitors still need to reach and move through the destination.
A destination development strategy can therefore consider how accommodation, public transport, walking and cycling routes, attractions and visitor flows interact.
The objective is not simply to make individual tourism products greener.
It is to progressively develop a lower-impact destination system.
3. Regenerate — Move beyond reducing harm
Reducing environmental impact remains fundamental.
But regenerative approaches introduce another ambition:
Can tourism contribute positively to the environmental and territorial systems on which it depends?
Within the COP30 tourism programme, regenerative approaches were explored in relation to ecosystem health, community wellbeing and climate resilience.
For destinations, regeneration can mean strengthening relationships between tourism and ecosystem restoration, biodiversity, local production, cultural heritage and local economies.
This changes the direction of the question.
Instead of asking only:
“How can tourism cause less damage?”
we can also ask:
“How can tourism contribute to strengthening the territory?”
Regeneration therefore moves the discussion from reducing negative impact towards creating positive territorial value.
4. Collaborate — Connect the destination
Destinations are complex systems.
No tourism business, municipality, destination organisation or community can address climate change independently.
Transport involves multiple operators.
Environmental management involves public institutions and specialist organisations.
Food connects tourism with agriculture and local production.
Cultural heritage involves communities, institutions and businesses.
Energy and infrastructure involve sectors extending far beyond tourism.
Climate action therefore requires collaboration.
UN Tourism identifies stronger governance and cross-sector collaboration as important mechanisms for accelerating climate action, alongside practical implementation and access to finance.
For destination development, collaboration has another important function:
it connects resources that otherwise remain fragmented.
A territory may already possess environmental initiatives, local producers, cultural organisations, sustainable businesses, knowledge and skills.
The challenge is often not creating everything from the beginning.
It is identifying what already exists and connecting it into a coherent direction for the destination.
5. Finance — Make transformation viable
Climate transition requires resources.
Infrastructure needs investment.
Businesses may need to change technologies or processes.
Environmental restoration requires funding.
Skills and capacity need to be developed.
Data needs to be collected and monitored.
New mobility systems may require significant investment.
This is why finance is one of the five strategic pathways.
UN Tourism’s COP30 agenda placed particular emphasis on improving access to finance for tourism climate action and included dedicated discussions around financing a greener tourism future.
But finance should not be understood only as public funding or grants.
Climate-resilient destination development may involve public investment, private investment, business transformation, partnerships, financial instruments and new economic relationships within the territory.
The important question is:
How can environmental transition become economically sustainable over the long term?
Without this dimension, climate action risks remaining a collection of temporary initiatives rather than becoming part of destination development.
Adapt — The dimension connecting all five pathways
Alongside the five strategic pathways, adaptation is becoming increasingly important within tourism climate action.
UN Tourism’s COP30 discussions explicitly address practical approaches to climate adaptation in destinations and businesses, while its work around the Glasgow Declaration points to emerging work on adaptation.
Adaptation is slightly different from the other pathways.
It can influence all of them.
Destinations need to measure environmental change.
Decarbonisation strategies need to consider future conditions.
Regeneration can strengthen ecosystems and territorial resilience.
Collaboration allows different actors to respond together.
Finance makes adaptation measures possible.
For this reason, adaptation can be understood as a dimension running across the entire climate action process.
From five pathways to destination development
The five pathways provide an international framework for climate action.
But every destination still needs to translate them into its own territorial reality.
An island will not follow exactly the same transition as a historic city.
A rural destination will not have the same priorities as a major metropolitan area.
A coastal destination and a mountain destination may experience completely different environmental pressures.
The framework therefore becomes most useful when it is combined with a place-based approach.
For Coolvoyage Destinations, we can translate this relationship into a destination development process:
Observe → Measure → Understand → Connect → Adapt → Develop
Observe what exists and what is changing.
Measure impacts and relevant environmental conditions.
Understand the relationships between tourism, resources, communities and the territory.
Connect the actors and resources capable of contributing to change.
Adapt tourism development to changing environmental conditions.
Develop a destination capable of creating long-term value within the environmental limits and opportunities of its territory.
This is not a replacement for the five pathways identified by the Glasgow Declaration Initiative.
It is a Coolvoyage Destinations interpretation of how an international climate action framework can inform place-based destination development.
Climate action is destination development
Climate action should not become another isolated chapter of a tourism strategy.
It affects the same systems on which destinations already depend:
natural resources, mobility, infrastructure, local economies, communities, businesses and visitor experiences.
The five pathways — Measure, Decarbonize, Regenerate, Collaborate and Finance — provide a structure for approaching that transformation.
Destination development provides the territorial context in which those actions need to work together.
The objective is therefore not simply to create destinations that produce fewer emissions.
It is to develop destinations capable of understanding their impact, adapting to environmental change, protecting and strengthening territorial resources and continuing to create value over the long term.
Climate action becomes destination development when it changes not only how tourism operates, but how a territory understands and plans its future.
Sources & Further Reading
This article draws on frameworks and discussions developed by UN Tourism around Tourism Climate Action, the COP30 Action Agenda and the Glasgow Declaration Initiative.
The five strategic pathways — Measure, Decarbonize, Regenerate, Collaborate and Finance — are those referenced by UN Tourism in relation to the Glasgow Declaration Initiative. UN Tourism also highlights emerging work on climate adaptation and practical solutions for a climate-resilient tourism future.
The interpretation of these pathways from a territorial and destination development perspective, including the Observe → Measure → Understand → Connect → Adapt → Develop process, has been developed by Coolvoyage Destinations.