Catching Up with the Other WTO

The World Tourism Organization, that is. There’s this interesting story in today’s NY Times about how global warming may affect tourism, and what the WTO is doing about it (why, meeting in Davos, of course). And it’s more than those ski slope operators in Pennsylvania that one has to feel sorry for. With air travel as a major source of carbon emissions, some in the South seem worried that they may get cut off from crucial tourist revenues. (And then there’s the problem of living in New Zealand. Kevin, have you been offsetting your emissions with a $36 Terrapass for those long jaunts to the East Coast?)

Speaking of air travel and second-tier IO’s, the International Civil Aviation Organization is reaching beyond its usual scheduling tasks and getting into the global warming action as well — see this report, courtesy of ASIL’s International Law In Brief. It’s amazing how the issue is starting to envelope all things, in a way that might make one hopeful. ICAO, meanwhile, is also confronting the problem of aircraft noise. When we see NIMBY surburban Americans protesting new flight paths taking matters upstairs, that’s when we’ll know that IL is reaching the American grass roots.