How Can I Stop Climate Change: What is it and how to help

Future growth of air travel means its share of carbon emissions will become more and more damaging.

Government projections for aviation’s emissions may be too conservative – others suggest aviation’s emissions in 2050 will make up far more of the UK’s total.

Source: Draft Climate Change Bill (2007)

More immediate savings can be made by changing the way air traffic is managed – effectively reducing the time that an aircraft spends in the air. One assessment suggests this could reduce emissions by between 6 and 12 per cent.

The European Union intends to bring aviation within the Emissions Trading Scheme to provide an incentive for the aviation industry to reduce emissions. While some airlines have welcomed the proposal, modelling suggests it is unlikely to result in lower emissions as it is unlikely to have a major impact on ticket prices and passenger numbers.

Indeed, it is hard to see how savings from efficiency can compensate for the rapid growth in emissions from flights. Experts at the IPCC concluded that while savings are possible, these will only partly offset the growth in aviation emissions globally. Offsetting schemes may make us feel better as passengers, but the potential to offset all our emissions simply does not exist.

One way forward would be for airlines to pay for the environmental damage they cause. Air passenger tax could be raised to cover the environmental costs and curb growth in demand. The need to restrain growth also places a huge questionmark over airport expansion plans in the UK. The only really effective way to cut emissions from the aviation sector is to manage the amount of flying that goes on – that doesn’t mean we have to fly less than we do now, but it does imply not flying much more. It also means doing something about airfreight, for example through lowering consumption of imported goods.