The Battle Against Climate Change

The scientific consensus around climate change is quite clear: unless we cut greenhouse gas emissions drastically within the next twelve years global warming will have catastrophic consequences. Yet the current UK government seems to completely lack a coherent approach to the climate crisis and there has been a lack of vision about what such an approach would involve. This session will discuss the types of strategies and policies that are needed if we are to significantly reduce emissions and move towards a low carbon economy and society.

The travel and tourism industry is worth over 10% of global GDP and employs nearly 10% of the global working population. Rising consumer purchasing power keeps fuelling this growth. Despite calls for climate action, the travel and tourism industry, and specifically for my PhD, the hospitality industry appears to be slow to ‘change’ to more sustainable practices. In this talk, I will describe my dual role of PhD researcher and lecturer and how I plan to prepare hospitality students to confront the complexities of sustainability, inspiring future generations of hospitality ‘change agents’.

Thousands of school children have gone on strike to protest about government inaction on climate change. This talk will consider how education for sustainability encourages the next generation to become ecological citizens. In recent years, educational programmes have been devised by not-for-profit, private and public-sector organisations intending to teach young people how and why they ought to adopt sustainable lifestyles. We will consider the possibilities and problems of education for sustainability. We will discuss how collective responsibilities are imagined and allocated within society.