One of the major challenges that Alpine tourism has to face in the quest for sustainability is climate change. A Tourism Protocol of the Alpine Convention is still far from its conclusion, whereas the Alpine Convention fourth report on the state of the Alps, “Sustainable Tourism in the Alps”, is under preparation and it is expected by the end of the year. Waiting for this forthcoming report,a CMCC’s research paper by CIP division (Climate Impacts Policies. An Economic Assessment) gather the main outcomes of the several CMCC research projects focused on the Alpine region that have addressed the issue of climate change (especially for what concern the implications for the tourism sector), and of the existing relevant literature.
In the last years, as reported the paper by CMCC’s author Stefano Balbi, several research and cooperation projects focused on the Alpine region have been dealing with the problem of climate change.
The Alpine Space Programme, starting with ClimChAlp (2006 – 2008) was in particular focused on the issue of adaptation to climate change. The programme continued in the following years through several projects, such as CLISP, ClimAlpTour, Manfred, AdaptAlp, AlpWaterScarce, ParaMount, Permanet, SILMAS, AlpFFIRS. The know how of these projects and its main results led to the C3Alps project, recently started.
Alpstar, another project recently started, is instead focused on climate change mitigation, and on the goal to make the Alps a carbon neutral environment.
CMCC participate to many of these projects, such as ClimAlpTour,  the only project explicitly focused on tourism, AdaptAlp, ClimChAlps and C3Alps.

Read the full research paper:

Climate change and tourism in the Alp – S. Balbi – CIP division – February 2012.

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