Foreign travellers account for 95% of tourism-related emissions in Maldives

Foreign holidaymakers account for 95 percent of tourism-related emissions in the Maldives, a new study has revealed.

The study, published earlier this week in Nature Climate Change and a world-first, looked at whether travellers or destinations were responsible for tourism-related carbon emissions.

It said the carbon footprint of global tourism is bigger than previously thought and that small island states have the highest per-capita destination-based footprints.

Almost a third of the Maldives GDP comes from tourism – there were almost 1.4 million arrivals last year – and the country is famed for its beaches and dive spots. But it is also vulnerable to the impact of climate change.