COVID-19’s Negative Impact on Tourism Employment in Asia and the Pacific Countries

According to a brief from the ILO, tourism in the Asia-Pacific countries has been suffering from job losses, deterioration in work quality, and shifts toward increased informality. Evidence from five countries - Brunei Darussalam, Mongolia, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam - demonstrates that job losses in tourism-related sectors in 2020 were four times greater than in non-tourism sectors. 

About ⅓ of the total job losses were linked to the tourism sector, with an estimated 1.6 million tourism-related jobs lost in these five countries alone. The ILO also estimates that pandemic-induced job losses will continue to drag down the region’s economies well into 2022. Even as borders reopen, international tourist arrivals are predicted to be slow in the near term. Given this, governments in tourism-rich countries are likely to seek broader economic diversification with the ultimate aim to create new employment opportunities in non-tourism sectors.

The pandemic did not affect all workers to the same extent. Women workers appear to have been particularly hit with an increased concentration of women carrying out food and beverage serving activities, the lowest-paid jobs in the sector.

A heavy impact on enterprises and workers in tourism at the country level:

• In the Philippines, employment losses and decreases in average working hours in 2020 were among the largest. Employment in the sector contracted by 28% (compared to an 8% loss in non-tourism-related sectors) and average hours worked by 38%. Workers in the tourism-related sector working zero hours per week rose two thousand-fold (affecting 775,000 workers).

• In Vietnam, the dire consequences of the crisis on the tourism sector were reflected primarily in decreasing wages and increased informality. Average tourism wages fell by nearly 18%, with the decline for women employees even higher at almost 23%. While the number of informal employees in tourism increased by 3% in 2020, the number of formal employees decreased by 11%.

• The impact of the crisis on tourism employment in Thailand was more muted, yet contractions in wages and working hours were stark, and jobs in the sector contracted. In contrast, jobs in non-tourism-related sectors experienced a slight gain. Average wages in the tourism sector decreased by 9.5% as tourism workers moved into lower-paid jobs like food and beverage serving activities. Average hours worked declined by 10 percent. In the first quarter of 2021, employment was below pre-crisis numbers in all tourism-related sub-sectors other than food and beverage serving activities.

• The tourism sector in Brunei Darussalam was hard hit in terms of both lower employment and fewer average hours worked, which contracted by more than 40% and nearly 21%, respectively. It was also the country that saw the largest difference between employment losses in tourism and non-tourism-related sectors.

• Likewise, in Mongolia, tourism employment and average working hours suffered considerably from the pandemic and contracted correspondingly by almost 17% and more than 13%. The impact on employment among male tourism workers was particularly sizable, falling by around 29%.

Climate Change Projections For 2030 Estimate That Majority Of The World's Population Will Live In Coastal Areas Which Are Exposed To Floods, Storms, and Tsunamis

A publication from Nature demonstrates that satellite observations of floods reveal that the proportion of the population exposed to floods has grown by 24% globally since the turn of the century. That is 10 times more than scientists previously thought, and they estimate that by 2030, climate and demographic change will add 25 new countries to the 32 already experiencing increasing floods and harsh weather conditions. 

The United Nations has chosen to increase international cooperation for developing countries as the theme of this year’s World Tsunami Awareness Day, on November 5th. The UN Secretary-General designated November 5th as World Tsunami Awareness day back in December 2015, and it is meant to call on all countries, international bodies, and civil society to increase understanding of the deadly threat and share innovative approaches to reduce risks. 

The UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, says that “rising sea levels caused by the climate emergency will further exacerbate the destructive power of tsunamis. We must limit warming to 1.5 degrees over pre-industrial averages and invest at scale in the resilience of coastal communities.” Many regions that experience rapid urbanization and growing tourism are prone to tsunamis, and it puts even more people in harm’s way. 

For World Tsunami Awareness Day in 2021, the theme will be the Sendai Seven Campaign. The Sendai Seven Campaign –"7 targets, 7 years" was launched in 2016 by the United Nations Secretary-General, with the main objective of promoting the seven targets of the Sendai Seven Campaign over seven years, which are the following: 

• 2016 – Target (a): Substantially reduce global disaster mortality by 2030, aiming to lower the average per 100,000 global mortality rate in the decade 2020- 2030 compared to the period 2005-2015

• 2017 – Target (b): Substantially reduce the number of people affected globally by 2030, aiming to lower the average global figure per 100,000 in the decade 2020- 2030 compared to the period 2005-2015;

• 2018 – Target (c): Reduce direct disaster economic loss in relation to global gross domestic product (GDP) by 2030;

• 2019 – Target (d): Substantially reduce disaster damage to critical infrastructure and disruption of basic services, among them health and educational facilities, including through developing their resilience by 2030;

• 2020 – Target (e): Substantially increase the number of countries with national and local disaster risk reduction strategies by 2020;

• 2021 – Target (f): Substantially enhance international cooperation to developing countries through adequate and sustainable support to complement their national actions for implementation of the present Framework by 2030;

• 2022 – Target (g): Substantially increase the availability of and access to multi-hazard early warning systems and disaster risk information and assessments to people by 2030.

Tsunamis are rare events but can be extremely deadly. In the past 100 years, 58 of them have claimed more than 260,000 lives or an average of 4,600 per disaster - more than any other natural hazard.

Plastic Production to Outpace Coal in Driving Climate Change by 2030

Plastics are on track to contribute more climate change emissions than coal plants by 2030, according to a new report by Beyond Plastics at Vermont’s Bennington College. As fossil fuel companies seek to recoup falling profits, they are increasing plastics production which are canceling out greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions gained from the recent closures of 65 percent of the country’s coal-fired power plants.

The New Coal: Plastics and Climate Change report, analyzes never-before-compiled data from ten stages of plastics production, usage and disposal and finds that the US plastics industry is releasing at least 232 million tons of greenhouse gases each year — the equivalent of 116 average-sized coal-fired power plants.

In June, the US Plastics Pact unveiled an aggressive national strategy to ensure all plastic packaging will be reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2025. But in the meantime, conventional plastics production shows no signs of slowing down: In 2020, the plastics industry’s reported emissions increased by 10 million tons of GHGs over 2019. According to the report, construction is currently underway on another 12 plastics facilities, and 15 more are planned — altogether these expansions may emit more than 40 million more tons of GHGs annually by 2025.

“The fossil fuel industry is losing money from its traditional markets of power generation and transportation. They are building new plastics facilities at a staggering clip so they can dump their petrochemicals into plastics. This petrochemical buildout is cancelling out other global efforts to slow climate change,” said Judith Enck, former EPA Regional Administrator and President of Beyond Plastics.

In addition to accelerating climate change, plastic pollutes water, air, soil, wildlife, and health — particularly in low-income communities and communities of color. The US plastics industry reported releasing 114 million tons of greenhouse gases nationwide in 2020. 90% of its reported climate change pollution occurs in just 18 communities where residents earn 28% less than the average US household and are 67% more likely to be people of color. In addition to greenhouse gases, these facilities also emit massive amounts of particulates and other toxic chemicals into the air, threatening residents’ health.

As Congress finalizes federal spending bills and the United Nations prepares to meet for COP26 in Glasgow next month, their failure to acknowledge and act to reduce plastics’ contribution to climate change threatens to undermine global climate-change mitigation efforts. Nearly 1,000 companies have already adopted 1.5°C-aligned, science-based targets — but governments must now do their part, and work to provide clarity for companies that are ready to accelerate their climate action with equally ambitious policies and incentives. Without both sectors working in tandem, the majority of sustainability experts are pessimistic about our ability to avoid the effects of catastrophic climate change.

Climate Change and Population Increase Stimulates the Impending Water Crisis

Improved water management, monitoring, and forecasting are needed in the face of a looming global water crisis, the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and partners said in a report published on Tuesday. 

Floods, droughts, and other water-related hazards increase due to climate change, but at the same time, the number of people experiencing “water stress” continues to rise. 3.6 billion people globally had inadequate access to water for one month per year, and this number is expected to surpass 5 billion by 2050. 

Petteri Taalas, the World Meteorological Organization Secretary-General, says that “Increasing temperatures are resulting in global and regional precipitation changes, leading to shifts in rainfall patterns and agricultural seasons, with a major impact on food security and human health and well-being.” This past year alone has seen extreme, water-related events. Across Asia, extreme rainfall caused massive flooding in Japan, China, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, and India. 

Flood-related disasters have risen by 134% compared to the last two decades, and most deaths and economic losses occurred in Asia. The number and duration of droughts also increased by 29% over the past two decades, and most deaths from droughts were in Africa. 

In the past 20 years, terrestrial water storage - the summation of all water on the land surface and subsurface, including soil moisture, snow, and ice - has dropped at a rate of 1 cm per year. Some of the biggest changes are occurring in Antarctica and Greenland, but many areas are experiencing significant water losses in areas that had traditionally provided water supply. 

Overall, the world is behind schedule on the UN Sustainable Development Goal No. 6 (SDG 6) to ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all. 3.6 billion people lacked safely managed sanitation services, and 2.3 billion people lacked basic hygiene services. Seventy-five countries reported water efficiency levels below average, including 10 with extremely low levels. 

A WMO assessment of 101 countries for which data are available found that:

• There is inadequate interaction among climate services providers and information users in 43% of WMO Members;

• Data is not collected for basic hydrological variables in approximately 40% of them;

• Hydrological data is not made available in 67% of them;

• End-to-end riverine flood forecasting and warning systems are absent or inadequate in 34% of those who provided data;

• End-to-end drought forecasting and warning systems are lacking or inadequate in 54% of them.

China Enters a Major International Climate Agreement

Chinese chemical companies must stop emitting HFC-23, a super-pollutant and an unwanted byproduct of the production of hydrochlorofluorocarbon-22. China and India dominate the global HFC-22 production, with 75% in 2017. China recently began enforcing the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol. The agreement requires China and other countries to stop emitting HFC-23, which is 14,600 times more powerful than carbon dioxide in warming the atmosphere. 

In an address to the U.N. General Assembly, Chinese president Xi Jinping made a new climate commitment not to build any new coal-fired power projects abroad. China will also increase financial support for more green energy projects. The pledge came hours after United States President Joe Biden announced a plan to double financial aid to poorer nations to $11.4 billion by 2024 to help those countries switch to cleaner energy and cope with global warming’s worsening effects.

“We need to accelerate a transition to a green and low-carbon economy,” Xi said in a speech at the U.N. General Assembly. “We will make every effort to meet these goals. China will step up support for other developing countries in developing green and low-carbon energy, and will not build new coal-fired power projects abroad.”

The United Nations first targeted HFC-23 emissions in China in 2006, when a U.N. program known as the Clean Development Mechanism or CDM began incentivizing HCFC-22 producers to destroy their HFC-23 emissions. The program paid HCFC-22 producers in China and other developing countries emission reduction credits, traded with developed countries to meet their emission reduction targets under the Kyoto Protocol. 

Although China has committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, ten companies in China built new HFC-22 capacity after April 2015 or are currently building new production facilities. In addition, three companies have also expanded or are in the process of expanding their HCFC-22 production capacity.

However, in another encouraging sign, the Bank of China said that it would no longer provide financing for new coal mining and coal power projects outside of China.