A LOOPHOLE IN THE SKIES
It’s time to reduce carbon emissions from international aviation, Chris Lyle says.
So Canada has finally submitted its contribution for the Paris climate summit in December: a 30-per-cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 2005 by 2030.
This is immediately being criticized as weak and inadequate. But compared with emissions from the air transport sector, Canada’s contribution looks very good indeed. Emissions from international air transport worldwide are not being reduced, they are tacitly accepted as more than doubling over the same 2005-2030 period. This results from a quirk of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol by which international aviation emissions are treated separately from national emissions commitments and for which there is no defined contribution.
More than 17 years after Kyoto, we still have no regulatory constraint on international aviation emissions. From 2020 on, all we have is a conjectural airline industry goal of “carbon neutral growth” dependent on the often dubious practice of car- bon offsetting (“think of this as paying someone in Africa to not smoke, so that you can continue to smoke,” as one colleague puts it).
One evasion is that air transport generates “only 2 per cent” of global carbondioxide emissions, but even the international component currently comes in at equivalent to the all-sector emissions of Australia, Italy or France and will soon pass them. Taking into account other greenhouse gases, aviation’s contribution to global warming is probably much greater already.
Technical and operational measures will by no means be enough to reduce aviation’s emissions from current and projected levels. Traffic growth will continue to outpace fuel efficiency by quite a large margin. Aircraft burn fossil fuels. Initial optimism regarding biofuels is now fading.
So what can I, as an individual, do about this? How should the conscientious citizen respond? Not only do we have to accept the now “unequivocal” determination of scientists that humaninduced climate change is real, we have to have to get our minds around responding to its impact on humanity.
If I step out into a busy street without looking the likelihood of direct damage to me personally is imminent. But if I burn fossil fuels the impact is not apparently immediate even if the human damage will ultimately be far greater — increasingly felt by our children and grandchildren.
Human nature being what it is, we need far-sighted leadership to address the costs of aviation emissions through economic regulation. Let’s persuade Paris negotiators to support the inclusion of international aviation in the mainstream of global emissions mitigation so that countries can control their contribution directly, or at least to establish a cap or meaningful price on these emissions. The atmosphere only understands one language, and that is reduced emissions.
Now to our personal, practical contribution. The dominant part of the emissions from an international tourist trip generally comes from air travel, not at the destination. Should we therefore take habitual “staycations”? Not necessarily — not travelling at all is of course an option, but may be set against one’s own welfare and the local economic and social benefits of well-directed tourism. But being more selective about your air travel may make sense. And when you do travel, try to minimize your carbon footprint. Fly economy class if you can (so you take up less space). By all means, purchase a carbon offset; but choose thoughtfully — buying a solar cooker for an Indian family to replace a coal or wood burning stove, for example — and actually reduce emissions rather than just neutralize them.
Ask your travel agent or tour operator some serious questions on sustainability. Press them to provide some comparable metrics. Why should online agencies such as Expedia, Priceline or Trip-Advisor not publish carbon footprint figures alongside their offers? Booking.com (for hotels) and some tour operators are currently working in this direction.
Traffic growth will continue to outpace fuel efficiency by quite a large margin. Aircraft burn fossil fuels. Initial optimism regarding biofuels is now fading. Chris Lyle