Carbon dioxide (CO2) footprint of visitors to county of Cajueiro da Praia (PI, Brazil)

Abstract

Tourism is a socio-economic activity of great importance for coastal tourist destinations, but when not developed on a sustainable basis, it can contribute to ongoing climate change by increasing the sector's carbon dioxide (CO2) footprint. Cajueiro da Praia (PI) is an emerging coastal destination in the state of Piauí, with a growing flow of domestic and international visitors, and without proper monitoring of CO2 emissions produced by the floating population. Thus, this article aimed to estimate the direct CO2 footprint of tourism in that destination, with emphasis on the transport and accommodation sectors (electricity consumption). The proposed methodology was based on the application of structured interviews with visitors and managers of lodging facilities to collect primary data, and on the use of internationally recognized conversion factors to estimate the CO2 footprint. The results pointed to the predominance of the use of road transport (93.79%), mainly own cars (61.8%), to reach the investigated destination, these accounted for 35.14% (4,166.43 KgCO2) of the carbon footprint of transport in the municipality. Despite air transport being used by 6% of visitors, given the significant carbon footprint of aviation, it accounted for 58.75% (6,966.61 KgCO2) of total CO2 emissions in the transport category. Regarding the consumption of electricity in the accommodation facilities, a daily consumption per room of 41,68 kWh was recorded, with a carbon footprint of 143,40 KgCO2, mainly derived from the use of air conditioning equipment and electric showers. With this, it was observed that the carbon footprint of tourism in the city of Cajueiro da Praia (PI) can be minimized through the adoption of educational, managerial and technological actions to promote mobility and accommodation on a sustainable basis.