Mountain tourism stakeholders facing the climate, energy and decarbonisation challenges, perspectives and adaptations in the French Pyrenees

Climate change is causing profound changes in mountain areas, with implications for tourism. The ski tourism sector has to adapt to these changes, face energy crises and the challenge of decarbonisation to meet the Paris Agreement targets. The French Pyrenees offers a relevant context for analysing the adaptation of ski tourism to environmental and energy challenges. In this context, the aim of this proposal is to explore how tourism stakeholders in the French Pyrenees perceive the climate and energy challenges and implement adaptation pathways. The research is interdisciplinary, based on management science and geography, and is based on 40 semi-structured interviews with institutional and private stakeholders from ski resorts in the Ariège and Haute Pyrenees. Preliminary findings show that most stakeholders agree that climate change is a challenge to their activities and recognise the need to adapt. However, most adaptation strategies remain reactive, and decarbonisation is often seen as a global objective. This point is reinforced by the fact that most of the carbon emissions from the ski resorts are due to the mobility of tourists. Stakeholders recognise the need to work on it, but are unable to act individually due to their areas of competence. The results confirm the need to strengthen the coordination between the different stakeholders and to involve the different territorial scales (from local to national).