The Tourism Climate Change Scenarios [Aotearoa Circle] were developed by The Aotearoa Circle in collaboration with technical experts across climate science, the tourism sector, policy, and sustainable finance.
The objective of the scenarios is to help sector participants understand the climate-related physical and transitions risks, as well as opportunities, facing their organisation.
Scenarios explore three possible futures
- Hiahia is an orderly scenario where strong and immediate policy action contributes to the global effort to limit climate change to 1.5°C.
- Pokanoa is a disorderly scenario where delayed policy action results in an expensive and inequitable transition to net zero around 2040.
- Wharewera is a hot house scenario with severe physical impacts and global inequality. Emissions are primarily offset with forestry and a lack of climate policy means gross emissions remain high.
Narratives describe the anticipated climate change impacts under each scenario
These include increases in:
- global temperature
- extreme rainfall
- area of native forestry
- sea level rise.
Socioeconomic trends explored
These include:
- New Zealand and global population
- carbon and oil price
- global GDP.
Anticipated impacts on the tourism sector are discussed throughout the scenarios.
The scenario narratives describe domestic and international travel trends, changes to the aviation industry (energy source and cost), adaptation efforts, and impacts on biodiversity.
Five main drivers of change for the sector
These were identified to be:
- physical impacts from climate change
- cost of travel and operations
- government priorities
- shifting perceptions
- future of travel.
These sector scenarios were designed for use by tourism sector participants to understand the physical and transition risks they face related to the climate and identify opportunities.
Organisations can use the identification of sector level risks and opportunities as inputs for further analysis to identify climate change risks and opportunities specific to their organisations.
Some public sector entities may find aspects of sector scenarios, such as the Tourism scenarios, useful for testing policies or strategies. This will depend on the nature of your organisation and focal question.
The tourism scenarios are for entities required to prepare mandatory climate-related disclosures under the Financial Sector (Climate-related Disclosures and Other Matters) Amendment Act in alignment with the External Reporting Board’s (XRB) New Zealand’s Climate-Related Disclosure Standards.
Entities required to prepare mandatory climate-related disclosures should not rely on any information presented here. They should go directly to the XRB’s website for more information about climate scenarios.
Non-reporting entities may find sector scenarios (or elements of the scenarios) useful for testing policies and strategies. Non-reporting entities should keep in mind that some aspects of the reports accompanying sector scenarios may not be relevant where they concern Climate-Related Disclosure Standard requirements [XRB website].
To read more about the meta scenarios and data the Tourism Sector scenarios are based on see pages 47-54 of the scenarios report [Aotearoa Circle website].
Limitations of existing global climate scenarios from the University of Exeter [Institute and Faculty of Actuaries website] on which the Tourism Sector scenarios are based.
Tourism sector climate change scenarios full report [Aotearoa Circle website].
Scenario drivers
Driving forces (also known as ‘drivers’) are typically broad scale factors that influence the direction of future change. Understanding which driving forces will have the greatest influence on outcomes for your focal question is an essential step to creating or using climate scenarios page 46.
There are a total of three tourism scenarios, each with a different narrative and emissions trajectory.
(Orderly) Hiahia
Hiahia represents a smooth transition to global net zero CO₂ by 2050. Global warming is limited to 1.5°C by the end of the century through stringent climate policies and innovation.
The orderly scenario assumes climate policies are introduced immediately and become gradually more stringent as the target date looms.
- Physical risks are relatively subdued, but transition risks are high.
- Getting to net zero by 2050 is an ambitious scenario.
(Disorderly) Pokanoa
Pokanoa represents a disorderly transition with little policy action until 2030 after which strong, rapid action is needed to limit warming to 2°C.
This scenario assumes countries or territories recover from COVID-19 using fossil-fuel heavy policies, so emissions increase, and carbon budgets are not met. It is only after 2030 that new climate change policies are introduced, but not all countries take equal action.
Consequentially, physical and transition risks are also higher. This is a costly and disruptive transition to net zero emissions. Global net zero is reached around 2060.
(Hot House) Wharewera
Wharewera describes a world in which emissions continue to rise unabated as no additional climate change policies are introduced.
Fossil fuel use continues to increase, and so global CO₂ emissions continue to rise. Warming is expected to reach higher than 3°C by 2080.
The physical impacts of climate change are severe. There are irreversible changes including:
- glacial melt
- sea level rise
Adapting to climate change has become the priority and it is assumed that physical climate events will impact the economy and financial system long term.