A study of 842 tourism development projects worth over 13 billion dollars reveals a significant gap in climate action. Only 89 projects explicitly target climate change, with most focusing on basic disaster adaptation rather than systemic decarbonization. While nature conservation and carbon sinks receive some attention, there is a critical lack of funding for decarbonizing tourism infrastructure and transportation. The findings suggest that international aid is missing a major opportunity to drive low-carbon development in a highly vulnerable sector.
