President of SUNx Malta and former President of the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC), Prof. Geoffrey Lipman has warned the global tourism community that sustainability frameworks are failing, calling for a generational reset.
He gave the warning while delivering a keynote address to Caribbean Chamber of Commerce in Europe(CCCE).
Speaking on World Environment Day at a UNESCO seminar hosted by the CCCE, Prof. Lipman,
Lipman, who is also the Assistant Secretary General, UNWTO, speaking from six decades of experience in sustainable tourism, including senior roles at IATA, UNWTO and WTTC, said that the three pillars of the global green order are in crisis.
Speaking further Lipman to delegates at the event that SDG targets are forecast to be missed by 80 per cent, the Montreal-Kunming Biodiversity framework faces equivalent gaps in funding and legal architecture, and the existential Paris 1.5°C climate pathway is “dying” as greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise year on year.
He called on the sector to rethink hollow declarations and embrace what he termed “Carney-world new realism” – a reference to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s call at Davos for a pragmatic reassessment of the post-war international order.
“Our global sustainability model is becoming unsustainable,” Lipman said.
“We are re-arranging the policy deckchairs on the Titanic, summit after summit, while falling short on 80% of our own self-declared targets,” he added.
Against this backdrop, SUNx Malta has announced two significant programme expansions.
The organisation’s flagship ‘Education to Action – A Plan For Our Kids’ initiative – encompassing a postgraduate Climate Friendly Travel Diploma with over 150 graduates, 40 grassroots CFT Chapters across Small Island and Developing States, and a CFT Registry of more than 1,000 enrolled companies – will be complemented next month by a second foundation, SxBGI (SUNx BestStar Global Institute), established at the Hub for Humanity in The Hague in partnership with BestStar Holding Group, a major multi-sector development platform focussed on practical humanitarian solutions, led by Dr. Arthur Eilers.
SxBGI will support climate-focused start-ups, new technologies and community projects, and will anchor a CFT Humanitarian Study Group taking families to visit Climate Friendly Travel destinations across the Global South.
The programme will also expand the Dodo4Kids campaign – which uses books, cartoons and games to teach children about climate and environmental threats – following a recent launch in Malta that sent 1,000 books to children in Ukraine with the backing of the Deputy Prime Minister of Malta and the Secretary General of UN Tourism.
“Maybe we can recognise the New Reality – but it will be our kids and grandkids who master it. Our job is to start right now and genuinely help them on the path, ” Lipman challenge his generation
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