Taking action on flight emissions
We have written previously about the impact that the aviation industry has on global emissions – and how this perpetuates climate injustice, with just 11% of the world’s population flying annually.
It is clear that the scale of global aviation cannot continue at current levels if we are to maintain a liveable world, and while the aviation industry is busy with greenwashing about ‘sustainable’ fuels (that are anything but) and hydrogen planes, the answer lies in reducing the number of flights.
While this target may have seemed unachievable even a year ago, great strides are already being made to reduce flights in order to curb emissions – and such actions could go a long way to increasing accountability for those with the highest carbon footprints.
Rails over wings
France, along with the Netherlands, has been setting the benchmark for global climate action legislation over recent years – and has once again raised the bar by banning some short-haul flights.
Specifically, the new legislation targets flight routes for locations where connecting train services would take 2.5 hours or less. This goes beyond encouraging travellers to use lower carbon options, and instead means that this is the only option where low carbon rapid-transit is available.
Thus far this will only impact three routes – Paris Orly Airport to Nantes, Paris Orly to Bordeaux, and Paris Orly to Lyon.
However, with thousands of travellers using these routes each year, it will have a significant impact on cutting unnecessary and excessive greenhouse gas emissions.
More routes will likely be covered by the ban in the near future once rail services are improved, with journeys between Paris, Lyon, Rennes and Marseille under review.
Such an action could also have an impact in Ireland. While we have far fewer domestic flights than France, we have regular flights between Dublin and Kerry and Dublin to Donegal – the latter being directly funded by the Irish Government, who pay for the twice daily flights.
Flights are now reaching pre-pandemic levels once again, with 100,000s departing each day - causing vast amounts of air pollution that worsen both human and planetary health. Credit: The Guardian & FlightRadar24
It would currently take 2 hours and 44 minutes to drive from Dublin to Donegal, or 3 hours and 35 minutes on the bus, which is not far from the 2.5 hour limit imposed in France.
The almost 5 hour train and bus journey from Donegal to Dublin, and the 5 hour 35 minute train journey from Kerry to Dublin show just how poor Irish public transport infrastructure is outside the capital – but the relatively short distance covered by these flights begs the question why they are being allowed after Ireland declared a Climate Emergency in 2019.
“The rich are burning down the planet and the damage is irreversible. We must stop them. Banning private jets would be a start.”
Similarly, the regular flights between Connemara and the Aran Islands are well served by ferries that also allow for better transport of people and goods to and from the mainland, without the emissions generated by a short plane ride.
Despite the clear role in worsening the Climate Crisis, the number of flights and their associated emissions are on the rise - and are expected to rise further still in the decades to come. This is at odds with a liveable planet. Credit: The Guardian & IEA
Banning Private Jets
Alongside restrictions on internal flights, there is a growing call to ban private jets in order to curb greenhouse gas emissions and meet the necessary limitations set out in the Paris Agreement.
Private planes are up to 14 times more polluting than commercial jets, and up to 50 times more polluting than taking a train. Worse still, they are often used for incredibly short flights – often less than an hour – by celebrities, the political elite and business people.
In doing so, they generate carbon footprints bigger than the average person on Earth in just a matter of minutes.
This prompted the group Scientist Rebellion to stage protests all over the world calling for a ban on private jets and a tax on frequent flyers in order to lower emissions and create climate justice.
Scientist Rebellion, if you aren’t aware of them, are a group scientists and researchers who believe it is their ethical duty to “call on communities our communities to stand in resistance to the genocidal direction of our governments, before it’s too late. If we scientists don’t act like we’re in an emergency, how can we expect the public to do so?”
Their press release about the protests stated: “It is obscene that Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates can fly their private jets tax free, while global communities starve. It’s only fair that wealthy polluters pay the most into climate loss and damage funds to help the most vulnerable countries adapt.”
Perhaps the most famous among the Scientist Rebellion protesters, NASA climate scientist Peter Kalmus, was arrested at Wilson Air Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. He stated: “Today I was arrested for the second time trying to increase public urgency about Earth breakdown. The rich are burning down the planet and the damage is irreversible. We must stop them. Banning private jets would be a start.”
In 2020, there were 2.15 million private charter flights, many of which crossed international airspace while commercial planes were grounded due to Covid-19 restrictions.
The individuals who own and charter these flights account for emissions that would take the average person years to generate. Taylor Swift, whose private jet undertook 170 trips in the first half of 2022 alone, is accountable for more than 8,293 tonnes of carbon emissions.
That’s 623 times greater than the average Irish person’s carbon footprint, in just six months alone – and even then it is worth remembering that the average person in Ireland has a carbon footprint nearly three times bigger than the average person on Earth, and 55% higher than the average person in the EU.
As the wealth gap continues to expand, the rich are disproportionately worsening the Climate Crisis as they pursue excessive, high-emission lifestyles. Credit: Transport & Environment
This is backed up by a recent Oxfam study, which assets that a single billionaire produces a million times more emission than the average person.
These are wholly unnecessary flights and wholly unnecessary emissions.
The more we can do to ban avoidable flights, the quicker we will meet our emissions targets and the more likely we are to maintain a liveable world. Banning private jets would be a sizeable and easy starting point.
Please note that this article was written prior to the banning of CelebJets and associated accounts on Twitter – an article on which, focusing on the impact that this has on climate education and justice, will follow soon
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