Korea Tourism Organization hosts forum on climate change

The Korea Tourism Organization hosted a forum on climate change with the participation of the U.N. World Tourism Organization yesterday.

Participants discussed ways for the tourism industry to prepare against climate change, and to find measures to reduce the damage tourism businesses inflict on the environment.

"The world economic slump and climate change can be solved by investing in the green industry. Tourism is the best new green deal," KTO president Oh Jee-chul said in her opening speech.

The forum titled "Climate Change, Millennium Development Goals, and World Tourism" was joined by more than 100 world tourism leaders and foreign envoys, and was sponsored by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.

Among the attendees were U.N. WTO Secretary-General Francesco Frangialli, Iranian tourism minister Rahim Mashaei, and Jeffrey David Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, who is also a special advisor to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon.

Tourism ministers from Benin, Cameroon, the Dominican Republic and Senegal also joined and shared views on tourism-related measures against climate change.

The forum is the third installment following previous meetings in July and October 2007.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon participated in the first forum, while the second was joined by Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro.

While tourism suffers from climate changes such as less snowfall and heat waves, it is also dubbed a major cause of the phenomenon.

The U.N. WTO has vowed to protect the climate as part of its Millennium Development Goals. Aims include creating a low-carbon society and promoting environmentally sustainable tourism, otherwise known as "green tourism."

By Lee Joo-hee

(angiely@heraldm.com)

[출처 : 코리아헤럴드]