Ski Community Activism on the Mitigation of Climate Change

Executive Summary

Humans are both the cause and the victims of climate change, which has negative net effects on a global scale. People around the world are not only experiencing the adverse impacts of climate change but are also contributing to the primary drivers of global warming through the unprecedented increase in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that has continued since the Industrial Revolution. This self-destructive process occurs at the expense of the most exposed and vulnerable economic sectors, which represent the earliest signs of climate change impacts.

These sectors, often described as the “canaries in the coal mine,” are not only making efforts to adapt to changing climate conditions but are also calling for urgent global attention. However, their individual and collective efforts alone are insufficient to address the environmental changes affecting their specific contexts.

The ski tourism community and industry represent one such socioeconomic sector where the immediate and severe impacts of climate change are already being experienced, with further effects expected in the near future. This situation has encouraged the ski community and industry to move beyond simply recognizing impacts and adapting to changes by establishing organizations focused on the mitigation phase of climate change.

These relatively young but rapidly globalizing initiatives seek to encourage ski tourism suppliers and consumers to participate in climate-friendly practices through voluntary and financially feasible approaches. However, such efforts will remain limited unless this commitment develops into broader activism capable of influencing macro-level decisions by policymakers.