Climate Change In Venice: Impacts On Tourism And Local Livelihoods Essay.

Write a report on the climate change in venice.

Theories of Climate Change and Their Application in the Real-Life Context

With the passage of time, tourism has become an important source of income for a number of countries and regions. A significant amount of income is brought into the local economy through tourism by way of payment for goods and services required by the tourists. A number of employment opportunities are also generated in the tourism associated service sector of the economy.

Climate change can be defined as the changes taking place in the statistical distribution of the weather patterns and that change persists for a significant period of time such as decades to millions of years. Tourism is considered to be highly vulnerable to tourism as it results in increasing the insurance costs and safety concerns, damage to attractions and assets at the destinations and biodiversity loss. Also, the tourism sector is negatively impacted due to continued climate driven disruption and degradation to the natural and cultural heritage (Becker, 2016). This further leads to the reduced attractiveness of the destinations and decrease in the economic opportunities for the local communities. Moreover, tourism is also capable of addressing the climate change issue with the help of fully mobilizing and orienting the innovativeness and resources of this global economic sector. The topic selected for the purpose of this assignment is climate change in Venice.

The most important climate change theory is the greenhouse theory which provides the restoration of the climate system to equilibrium through the warming of the surface troposphere system along with the cooling of the stratosphere. There is a partial absorption of the incoming solar light and atrial reflection by the surface of the earth. With the passage of time, the carbon- dioxide has increased in the atmosphere thereby leading to the increase in the average global temperature (Lejeusne, Chevaldonné, Pergent- Martini, Boudouresque and Pérez, 2010).

The application of the greenhouse theory in the context of climate change in Venice provides that Venice is expected to disappear underwater within a century is the levels of global warming is not lowered. The global warming has led to the forecast of rise of the Mediterranean Sea by up to 140 cm before the year 2100 (Roson and Sartori, 2014). This rise is expected to swamp the parts of Italy west coast and 176- mile long coastline in the North Adriatic. This is the result of the greenhouse gas emissions.   Furthermore, the environmental and local infrastructures will be subsequently impacted as the consequence of the loss of land (Walker, 2017).

Another key theory of climate change is the conspiracy theory which raises certain claims on the scientific consensus of on global warming on the basis of the conspiracies on the production of manipulated data and suppressed dissent. The influence of the humans has been detected in the global warming of the atmosphere, oceans and the rise of the sea level and changes in the global water cycle (Andrews, 2018).

The application of conspiracy theory in the context of climate change in Venice provides the increased impacts including the erosion of the historic fabric. The entire international community is required to act collectively for the purpose of preserving this unique place of the mankind. Venice is facing climate change in terms of rising sea levels, droughts and deadly storms which are the extreme weather trends. The greenhouse gas emissions can be dealt by the countries collectively in order to cut it completely by the year 2050 (Douglas and Sutton, 2015).

Current Issues in Venice

Climate change in Venice is the most important current issue which is affecting the tourism of the area to a great extent. Even when the city is suffering from the climate change issues, there has been no impact on the tourism in the region. The tourists have continued to increase from the past 10 years and the current estimated arrivals per day is 60,000 (Xinhua, 2012). The massive influx of tourists has resulted in the inconvenience for the local residents due to which the concerns for the future of the city and its identity have started growing. In other words, the original characteristics of Venice will be lost somewhere due to excessive inflow of tourists along with the exodus of the native people. The economy of the city has become completely tourism- oriented and its original identity has been eroded (Financial Times, 2011).

Figure 1 Number of Foreign Tourists arrivals in Venice from 2011 to 2016

(Source: Statista, 2018)

The topic i.e. climate change in Venice have significantly impacted the local livelihoods as well as it has increased the cost of living in the area. The housing costs are further increasing as a result of the fact that the tourists are competing for obtaining accommodation with the locals in order to have a close view of their livelihood. The climate change in the area has further reduced the establishments of businesses along with the shifting of already existing businesses to other regions which, in turn, have reduced the job opportunities in the region. The promotion of inclusivity is also becoming difficult due to climate change (Urry, 2015).

Figure 2 Flooding of Sea Water in the City of Venice

(Source: Walker, 2017)

Generally, it is noticed that there is high sensitivity in the tourism due to the fact that the quality and length of the tourism sessions are dependent on the climate. Such kind of influenced environmental conditions both deter and attract the visitors to the place. It is true that Venice suffers from over tourism which has also been recently reported as the climate change issue as there is a link between climate change and global warming. However, this issue can be resolved through the dispersal of tourists to some other place or spreading the time of their arrival over the year, month or week. Since there is a continuous increase in the number of tourists in Venice then the impact of the widely- distributed tourists will continue to grow too (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2015). The climate change of Venice is creating issues for the tourism stakeholders as they have a stake in the environment also. In this way, they are also responsible for the mitigation of the emissions taking place within the industry. This can be done with the help of the mitigation policies for tourism greenhouse gas emissions.

The innovations that will take place in the future will be on the basis of the adoption of new technology by Venice for the purpose of responding comprehensively to the climate change conditions. In the foreseeable future, climate change will be affected by further increase in the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Furthermore, there are a number of factors on which the future changes in the climate will depend such as natural influences on climate (for example, changes in the intensity of the sun and from volcanic activity) and the natural processes of the climate system (such as the changes taking place in the patterns of ocean circulation). Moreover, the temperature is expected to change further in the future.  These issues may lead to a significant decline in the tourism of the region (Zachariadis, 2016).

Future of Climate Change in Venice

Figure 3 Temperature Patterns of Venice

(Source: Zachariadis, 2016)

The increase in the greenhouse gas emissions is an issue which is very difficult to be treated unless billions of tons of the annual emissions decrease substantially. However, collective efforts are required for the purpose of treating this issue. Still, there are chances that the issue can be dealt with. The intensity of global warming will increase in the coming years. The impact of climate change will not only be on the tourism of Venice due to extreme weather conditions, temperature and climatic factors but will also have an indirect impact on the natural environment of Venice which attracts the tourists (Mowforth and Munt, 2015).

There is a requirement of the adoption of a successful strategy in future for the purpose of bringing a significant reduction in the greenhouse gas emissions. Appliances, vehicles and machineries should use such technologies in order to use the energy in an efficient manner.

Conclusion

Therefore, it can be concluded that the source of income of a number of countries depends on tourism. The topic selected for the purpose of this assignment is climate change in Venice. Tourism is considered to be highly vulnerable to tourism as it results in increasing the insurance costs and safety concerns, damage to attractions and assets at the destinations and biodiversity loss. This report applies greenhouse theory and conspiracy theory in the context of climate change in Venice. Venice face the issues of erosion of its original identity as the city has completely become tourism- oriented. Venice suffers from over tourism which is further contributing towards global warming. Furthermore, it is expected that a number of innovations will take place in the future with the help of which these climate change conditions can be managed. The increase in the greenhouse gas emissions is the issue which is further expected to increase in future.  

References

Andrews, E. 2018. The real fear behind climate conspiracy theories, [Online]. Available at: https://grist.org/article/the-real-fear-behind-climate-conspiracy-theories/  [Accessed on: 20 November 2018].

Becker, E., 2016. Overbooked: the exploding business of travel and tourism. Simon and Schuster.

Douglas, K.M. and Sutton, R.M., 2015. Climate change: Why the conspiracy theories are dangerous. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 71(2), pp.98-106.

Financial Times. 2011. Climate change: who cares any more?, [Online]. Available at: https://www.ft.com/content/1b5e1776-df23-11e0-9af3-00144feabdc0 [Accessed on: 20 November 2018].

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2015. Climate change 2014: Mitigation of climate change (Vol. 3). Cambridge University Press.

Lejeusne, C., Chevaldonné, P., Pergent-Martini, C., Boudouresque, C.F. and Pérez, T., 2010. Climate change effects on a miniature ocean: the highly diverse, highly impacted Mediterranean Sea. Trends in ecology & evolution, 25(4), pp.250-260.

Mowforth, M. and Munt, I., 2015. Tourism and sustainability: Development, globalisation and new tourism in the third world. Routledge.

Roson, R. and Sartori, M., 2014. Climate change, tourism and water resources in the Mediterranean: A general equilibrium analysis. International Journal of Climate Change Strategies and Management, 6(2), pp.212-228.

Statista. 2018. Number of overnight foreign tourist arrivals in the city of Venice, Italy from 2011 to 2016 (in 1,000s), [Online]. Available at:  https://www.statista.com/statistics/732572/international-tourist-arrivals-in-venice-italy/ [Accessed on: 20 November 2018].

Urry, J., 2015. Climate change and society. In Why the social sciences matter (pp. 45-59). Palgrave Macmillan, London.

Walker, P. 2017. Venice will vanish underwater within a century if global warming is not stalled, climate change study warns, [Online]. Available at: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/venice-will-vanish-within-a-century-study-warns-a7614591.html [Accessed on: 20 November 2018].

Xinhua. 2012. Feature: Concerns about future, identity grow in Venice amid influx of tourists, [Online]. Available at: https://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2017-09/12/c_136604363.htm [Accessed on: 20 November 2018].

Zachariadis, T., 2016. Climate Change Impacts. In Climate Change in Cyprus (pp. 25-49). Springer, Cham.