Tourism Aviation Emissions Reduction | How Helsinki is Tackling the Challenge
Tourism aviation emissions reduction is the defining climate challenge for destinations. Helsinki shows what honest leadership and practical action look like.
5 ViewsGuest blogger, Jukka Punamäki, Senior Advisor, Tourism, City of Helsinki, weighs in.
Tourism, Flying and Climate: How Helsinki Is Addressing the Challenge
Tourism plays a vital role in Helsinki’s economy, international visibility, and global connectivity. At the same time, tourism is associated with a substantial climate footprint, largely driven by how visitors travel to the destination. In Helsinki, more than 90% of tourism-related emissions originate from travel, primarily international flights. While these emissions are mostly beyond the city’s direct control, Helsinki is exploring how it can influence outcomes through strategic choices, collaboration, and advocacy.
Helsinki has been ranked number one in the Global Destination Sustainability Index twice in a row. This recognition raises an important question: what does climate leadership really mean for a travel destination when the full climate impact of tourism is taken into account?
Climate leadership means addressing the hardest questions
For Helsinki, climate leadership in tourism is not only about achievements or visibility. It also means being willing to take responsibility and focus on the most difficult issues. When tourism emissions are examined honestly, air travel stands out as the single largest source. If destinations want to be taken seriously as climate leaders, they cannot exclude the biggest impacts from the discussion.
This approach requires transparency. Helsinki has chosen to be open about impacts, uncertainties, and the need to make choices between competing goals. Climate leadership does not mean having perfect solutions or full control over global systems. It does, however, mean starting to act, setting direction, and giving an example to others.
Can Helsinki commit to the Glasgow Declaration?
The Glasgow Declaration on Climate Action in Tourism calls for halving tourism-related emissions by 2030. With tourism demand and emissions growing globally, and only a few years left until 2030, this target is highly ambitious. For Helsinki, the challenge is particularly significant because aviation dominates the tourism carbon footprint.
At the same time, tourism growth makes the target harder to reach. Even if emissions per visitor are reduced, total emissions can still increase as visitor numbers grow. Signing the Glasgow Declaration does not mean that Helsinki knows exactly how the target will be achieved. It means committing to action, learning, and transparency along the way.
Shared responsibility in a global system
A common argument in discussions about aviation is that no one is responsible for flight emissions. Aviation is a global and complex system without a single owner or controller. However, the absence of full control does not remove responsibility to act. In reality, responsibility is shared and shaped by decisions made at many levels, including destinations, businesses, and policymakers.
While flight-related emissions are largely beyond the city’s direct control, Helsinki can still influence demand through smart choices, collaboration, and advocacy.
What can destinations do in practice?
Helsinki has identified several practical ways to influence tourism-related emissions. These include using emissions-related indicators alongside traditional tourism metrics, prioritising domestic, nearby, and European markets, encouraging travel by land and sea where feasible, and working with tour operators that focus on low-carbon travel. The City of Helsinki is also leading by example by reducing its own flight-related emissions and increasingly encouraging work travel by land routes.
Reducing emissions requires combined action
Analysis shows that halving tourism emissions cannot be achieved with a single measure. Instead, reductions would need to come from several actions implemented at the same time. Indicative scenarios highlight three key levers: how long visitors stay, where they come from, and how they travel.
A combined action model illustrates how partial changes across markets, travel modes, and length of stay could together achieve substantial emission reductions. The key insight is clear: there is no single solution, but a portfolio of coordinated measures can make meaningful progress. The challenge is demanding, but it is not impossible.
Helsinki’s approach demonstrates how destinations can engage honestly with the climate impacts of tourism while continuing to value international mobility, cooperation, and the broader benefits tourism brings. The focus is not on claiming certainty, but on committing to action.
