It’s a vendetta. It’s class war. Those killjoy greens are trying to demonise
the air industry and the package holiday. How dare that Mr Osborne and that
Mr Cameron ask airlines to pay for the pollution they create. Don’t they
know that air travel has broadened the horizons of millions? Don’t they know
how much I spent on my holiday villa? Look, we all know flying is only a
blip in global warming. So why pick on that?
When the debate boils over, when intelligent people tout the cheap return to
Málaga as a totem of civil liberties, it is time to step back and look at
the figures. The air industry has run a powerful campaign that has
successfully lodged in many minds a reassuringly small figure of 2 per cent.
But 2 per cent of what? It is correct to say that flying represents about 2
per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions. But that is not terribly
relevant. That the UK’s total greenhouse gas emissions are only 2 per cent
of the world’s has not stopped our leaders from pursuing drastic reduction.
When facing the confusion and complexity of climate change, it is more sane to
consider what is within our control. Flights make up 5.5 per cent of the
UK’s carbon emissions, according to the Department for Transport. But this
only counts outbound journeys. Brendon Sewill, a former Treasury adviser,
puts the figure at nearer to 8 per cent if you include return journeys made
by Brits. That’s still not much. But you must also account for the extra
intensity of the greenhouse effect when aircraft burn kerosene at high
altitudes. This, it is generally accepted, strengthens the greenhouse effect
of planes by between two and four times. Even the most conservative estimate
is going to take you past 10 per cent. It means that British air passengers
are contributing almost as much to climate change as British car drivers,
with far less hope of switching to a cleaner technology.
Even on these figures, electricity generation is about three times more
polluting. But air travel is not negligible. The Government estimates that
its rapid growth — at 4 per cent a year for passengers and 7 per cent for
freight — will provide 25 per cent of the UK’s carbon emissions by 2050. The
cross-party House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee and the Tyndall
Centre for Climate Change have gone farther, saying that unchecked aviation
could actually bust the 60 per cent carbon budgets that the Government
announced on Tuesday, even if every other industry slashes its emissions.
So no policy on climate change should ignore air travel. Yet this week’s
Climate Change Bill does not include aviation in its targets. Asking an
independent carbon committee to ignore the airlines in its annual report on
the country’s carbon emissions is a bit like asking Mervyn King to control
inflation without data on runaway house prices.
The blind spot about air travel is everywhere. I was recently in a meeting
with a large corporation hoping to go “carbon neutral”. As a first step, it
had commissioned consultants to measure its carbon “footprint”. This did not
include employees’ business air travel: it is apparently a convention among
consultants not to do so. This is Enron-style accounting, and any company
that falls for it will soon find that the only thing it has neutralised is
its PR.
Could this blind spot have something to do with air travel often being a free
perk for many of the richest people, including some of the journalists who
write most furiously in its favour? The revolution is fomenting in West
London, not Walsall. Is this why the airlines are still able to run the
biggest tax-avoidance scam in the world, by avoiding tax on fuel? If the
Chancellor taxed aircraft fuel at the same rate as petrol for cars, he would
raise a cool £9 billion, which could be used to fund tax cuts or invested in
low-carbon technologies.
It is now a principle of British and European law, of several American states,
and soon to be federal US law, that industries should meet the costs of the
pollution and global warming that they generate. But not the air industry.
While aviation will be part of the European emissions trading scheme from
2012, this will never take account of the extra toxicity of travelling at
high altitude.
A fuel tax is also needed. The Treasury dismissed this weekend’s Tory
proposal, that domestic flights should pay tax on fuel, as a unilateral
action that was inappropriate in a multilateral context. But the
Netherlands, Japan, India and the US already tax fuel on domestic flights.
All that we have done is to impose air passenger duty, retrospectively, and
with zero environmental impact. Empty planes pay nothing.
Politicians are acutely aware of the opportunities and educational benefits
that flying brings. They fear that any tax would hurt the poor. The
Institute of Public Policy Research and the Institute of Fiscal Studies
disagree. They say that 80 per cent of flights are made by the top half of
earners. That half of the population do not fly in any one year. That the
main growth in flights has been from well-off UK citizens taking more
holidays. For those people, flying is much more than 2 per cent of their
contribution.
Three years ago I tried to give up flying. Not with total success, I confess,
but almost. This was not because I bore a grudge against Ryanair. It was not
out of some exhibitionist desire to thrust green smuggery down other
people’s throats. It was simply because I discovered, courtesy of some of
those carbon calculators you can now get online, that my flights accounted
for a quarter of my own contribution to global warming. The most effective
thing I could do personally, I felt, was to cut down on flying.
That doesn’t mean I want everyone to live in mud huts. But as long as ticket
prices fail to reflect the true damage we are doing, it will be hard to
convince anyone that flights do make a significant contribution to climate
change. They do.
Save the planet ! - have yourself neutered, THAT is the greatest contribution anyone who cares about the planet can make. We are INCREASING the rate at which we are increasing the numbers of humans on the planet. Unless someone is waiting for another miracle like the 40 loaves and 40 fishes feeding the 5000. the future is dire. The greatest threat to the planet is the burgeoning human population. At a point in time the increasing population line will cross the reducing resources line (viable living space/ areas which can produce food. Fuel/ water etc. By increasing the population as we are currently doing, we are pulling the run out date ever faster towards us. Please dont go on about saving the planet for our children, Our children are in fact the problem for the Earth. Soylent Green anyone?
Peter East, Grays , Essex
It was Joe Stalin, I believe, who said " If you repeat a lie often enough it becomes the truth" Aircraft do not produce 2% of global greenhouse gas emissions anymore than the UK produces 2% of the total emissions. The percentages relate to the man-made emissions which are 3-5% of the total. A more accurate estimate of aircraft emissions would, therefore be 0.06-0.1% of the global emissions total, hardly a significant amount.
Frank, Lincoln, UK
Feeling hopeless in having any say over the large industries to change, or our governments to start caring, I'm planting trees as far and wide as I can manage. Already I have pugged into the good earth at least a thousand in my life time. Looking to put in another thousand before I join them in the soil. It what we can do today to trap the excessive carbon. Keep the pressure on the corps and government, I sure do, then get out the shovel and plant a few hundred trees to trap the excessive carbon. There is plenty of space and kids love em. It's there future we are watching crumble into unsustainabilty. Sad when you really think about it.
Kathy E. Esch, Oregon, Wisconsin
"This did not include employees’ business air travel: it is apparently a convention among consultants not to do so. This is Enron-style accounting,"
I thought it was Al Gore style accounting. Mr Gore says he is 'corbon-neutral' - I say he is a hypocrite and that carbon reduction begins at home. Mr. Gore and all the Hollywood stars who so earnestly assure us that we need to reduce our carbon footprint should begin by setting an example: move to smaller, 'greener' houses, fly 'cattle-class' when flying is necessary, junk their SUV's and Humvees completely, and mothball their pools. In fact they should forego owning cars completely and use public transport - as I do.
I am far more likely to listen to Ralph Nader than to Al Gore - because Nader tends to live what he preaches. Mr. Gore does not.
Don, London, UK
This whole hoo haa of focussing on flying is a diversionary tactic - the problems lie in our choice of energy sources, whether that be chemical or electrical energy, and these should remain the focus for change - if you want to drill down to human activities that can be modified, domestic and commercial heating and cooling, petrol and our remarkably inefficient power stations are far more significant - and there are great steps we can take to change things for the better with these. Aviation is 2% of Greenhouse gas output; The only reason it is highlighted is due to it's steep growth curve.
I'm not saying it doesn;t matter, just it's being promoted as the topic du jour to halt discussion, education and action on the things we really can and should be addressing, such as decentralised power.
Andy Iddon, London, UK
The answer is simple: internalize the externalities. Impose a tax on carbon that works itself through the economy and results in prices that accurately reflect the carbon footprint of activities like air travel, then let people be free to do as they wish. Given proper price signals, the law of supply and demand will reliably reduce carbon output without the need to resort to heavy-handed regulation of individual behaviour.
Stefan Stackhouse, Black Mountain, NC/USA
Let me declare an interest. Like 7.5 million other people in Europe, I owe my livelihood to aviation.
Ms Cavendish’s grasp of logic needs a brush-up. If all flights departing the UK account for 5% of GHG emissions – not a figure I recognise – then all flights arriving in the UK should have their emissions ‘credited’ to where they set off from. In other words, all her figures have been double-counted.
Her other big mistake is to claim that the airline industry devotes all its efforts to denying its role in global warming and avoiding the consequences. This could not be further from the truth. I can personally testify to vast amounts of money and manpower devoted to finding solutions, not excuses, to the challenge of balancing environmental responsibility, which the airlines accept, with a clearly-expressed desire on the part of ordinary people – and not just the rich – to travel.
David Henderson, Brussels, Belgium
From past experience, this column will probably soon fill up with postings from those who would rather seize on any diversion - such as a controversial Channel 4 programme - rather than concede that it may be time to consider whether it's sensible for us to be congesting and polluting the atmosphere, whether high up or at road level, more and more as the years go by. For that reason I congratulate Camilla for having the guts to challenge these people. Of course she's right. Some years ago most people would have thought it wonderful if they could afford to go abroad each year. Now David Cameron is derided for proposing "only" one annual tax-free flight per person. But of course there'd be nothing stopping people taking more if they wished, it would just cost them rather more. And rightly.
Barry, Wallington, UK
The debate on what causes global warming should be the preserve of scientists, who actually understand the evidence, while the public rightly debates the best way to go about what to do about it.
There are so many arguments that at first sight appear to cast doubt on man-made global warming but in fact fall apart under even casual scrutiny. For example, "man-made C02 is only 5% of the earth's total output" is like saying that rain causes sea level rises. The other 95% of C02 is part of a natural cycle in which plants absorb C02, then are eaten by animals that emit it again.
The possibility that the sun causes global warming has been tested and rejected already. Scientists must continue to test hypotheses other than C02 as causes of warming, but releasing unproven or disproved ideas to the public is highly irresponsible, because they'll be seized on by those with no interest other than to oppose any curbs on their pampered lifestyles.
richard Milne, edinburgh, UK
How lucky you are Camilla. You can give up flying. It's a delightful little luxury for you.
A lot of British people have close relatives that live in other countries. I assume you think I have other methods of transportation available to me and my ederly parents who live in California to visit eachother.
You have shamefully fallen into the current party line way of thinking that all airline flights are chavs getting to Malaga for a holiday break. Choosing, rather conveniently to forget that we live on an island with a modern economy that requires airlines to feasibly engage with the outside world and import goods.
Should we all get on large ocean liners that pollute 5x as much for 20x longer than airplanes?
Stop trying to suck the last ounce of joy out of everyone's life and you might make some progress.
Laura M, Hexham, UK
I was under the impression that Mervyn King was indeed being asked to control inflation without taking into account data on runaway house prices, as the government's chosen measure of inflation (RPIX) excludes mortgage interest inflation.
On this basis the government is a least being consistent in selective use of data.
Perhaps some more careful research next time?
Bob, Reading,
A few more 'Inconvenient Truths' to consider:-
1) Global Warming peaked in 1998 and is now on the cooling part of the cycle.
2) Historical data concerning the atmosphere and weather from Ice Cores have one fatal flaw. In a warm summer, ice has a habit of melting.
3) While the Arctic is largely melting, the Antarctic ice is increasing. Why? (It is intriguing that the same thing is happening on Mars. Just how is that my fault?)
4) Compare the Met Office's constant press release of the "warmest ?????? since records began" (insert your own time period to suit) with temperatures recorded in the Pathe News records in their '1949 - A Year to remember". In a piece commenting about a heat wave that year it clearly shows a temperature of 105 deg.F or 41 deg.C. Significantly higher than recent 'record' temperatures.
Brian Vallance, LEFKIMMI, Greece
Why not start by banning private jets? Taxing the mega-rich for flying will not reduce the Gulfstream V crowd's carbon footprint a single iota but an tax on flying would nail the common folk who have to save and scrimp for the occasional vacation.. Flying "Upper Class" across the Atlantic as one of four hundred on a 747 may not be as elegant as traveling across on your private jet but the CO2 generated on a 747 per person, per mile is quite a bit less.
Whoops, I forgot , as a beautiful person you can buy "Carbon Credits" from a profit making firm you own, ala Al Gore, and reach carbon-neutral heaven. You know, sorta, kinda like buying indulgences from the pre-Reformation Catholic Church to save your soul.
Russ, Exeter,
Ground all jets, stop all cars, turn off all the power stations....or perhaps find another topic of the now to report on. Have the war in Iraq and the economy become so irrelevant now that everyone's heads are now turned by climate change.
If the government are really that worried about this they'd put a stop on airport expansions and prevent the capacity for growth in air travel before there's even the chance,
Adrian Easthope, Chelmsford, UK
I wouldn't be surprised that CO2 emission is just another red herring. Why don't we concentrate on recycling instead, keep our land fields in manageable condition; ban irritatingly free London papers and junk mail frenzy... altogether it will make more difference then just another CO2 tax
Sacha, London,
It is tragic that anyone who questions the anti-co2 brigade's "evidence" is regarded as the modern day equivelant of a heretic. The green inquisition is in full swing! Media propoganda and a multi-party agreement have done the trick to synthesise yet another way of squeezing the middle classes. The government knows full well that their taxes will not prevent flights and so they can sit back and watch the proceeds of yet another stealth tax roll in. To go along with their congestion and road tax charge plans. NO benefit to the environment, MASSIVE hole in all of our budgets!
John, London, UK
Thanks Camilla. You have concisely and eloquently highlighted a serious issue: facts now support the view that "excessive" flying is an anti-social and selfish practice.
Like you I am certainly not against flying, but I believe that the privilege is being abused and this will not change until politicians have the courage to do their duty in this area.
The 10% of population responsible for 50% aircraft emissions in UK should be discouraged from abusing this privilege and they should be compelled to pay for the "real" cost of their actions.
Chris Shaw, Bath, UK
I do belive that shipping actually produces more CO2 than flying, all those large diesel engine produce a lrage amout of pollution. Prehaps there should be an investigation into this
sally, bristol,
People,such as Camilla Cavenish, may be well intentioned, may feel they are doing their bit to help and that by implication we should all deny ourselves too, but she probably is already very well travelled. My husband and I are due to retire later this year having spent many years bringing up children, going on 'green' camping holidays etc. during school holidays, unable to really benefit from cheaper flights out of peak times. Only now do we have the chance to take some low cost flights( if they are still available by the time we can really benefit from them!) and explore the world. We haven't had the chance of a 'gap year' ...yet ...and intend to make up for lost time!
Sally, winchester,
Won't all the middle class second-home-on-the-continent owners simply decide to go by car instead? Which will enrich French budget hotel owners but not do a great deal to cut total greenhouse gas emissions.
Penny, Gibraltar,
Everyone, in their haste to be greener than green, ignores the elephant in the room. Overpopulation, not aviation, is the prime cause of environmental degradation. Will no one grasp the nettle?
Tom Farrier, Weybridge, UK
Can we please have some proper analysis on the CO2 issue rather than just accept the (govt. payroll) consensus? Surely it's not that complex even if you only have a history degree?
1. Global warming is happening.
2. Either the increase in CO2 is a cause of this warming or it is a consequence (the sun's variation causing the warming.)
Those who believe CO2 increase is the cause must answer 3 questions;
a. The world was much warmer 800 years ago than today because of the sun's behaviour, and so were the CO2 levels. Why is today different?
b. Why are Mars, Triton and Jupiter also warming up? (see Nasa evidence). Bit of a co-incidence surely?
c. Why does isotopic analysis of the increase in CO2 shows that only a small proportion of it can be traced to industry?
I fully accept I may have got hold of the wrong end of the stick, but simply being told its a consensus view of politicians and scientists with a political axe to grind is failure on the part of serious media.
Mark, Edinburgh, UK
Aviation does not produce 2 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions. It produces 0.0117 per cent of greenhouse gases. i.e. if represented by one house brick the other bricks representing the atmosphere as whole would stretch 142 miles. Total anthropogenic CO2 would be represented by just 9 bricks in that 142 miles of bricks. . I have no connection with the Aviation industry nor do I fly regularly.
flatfour, horley,
Ms Cavendish's extrapolated figure of 10% for air transport's contribution to the UK's CO2 emissions is indeed "not negligible", until one remembers that GLOBAL MANMADE emissions account for only 5% of the Earth's total annual output of CO2, with the remaining 95% being produced by natural sources.
With the UK producing 2% of that 5%, or 0.1%, and UK air travel producing (according to Ms Cavendish) 10% of that 0.1%, this puts UK air travel's contribution at 0.01% of total global CO2 emissions.
So stopping all UK flights completely would reduce total global CO2 emissions by one ten thousandth!
Hmm...
Kevin Browne, Reading, Berkshire, England
There was nothing binding about the Climate Change Bill anyway. Any future parliament can overturn the so called binding commitment to reductions with a simple majority vote. Which might be a good thing as the science of climate change is still in its infancy, and the that claim man-made emissions have a negligible effect may yet be right. Meanwhile, see you on holiday in Bognor.
G, London,
We have the technology now to cut carbon emissions from electricity generation and road transport to zero: nuclear power and electric cars. But, we don't have the technology to reduce the emissions from aviation to zero without making significant sacrifices. So, lets reduce electricity generation and road transport carbon emissions to zero first and before cutting down on flying.
Matthew, Ringwood, UK
So ground all private jets NOW. Abolish 1st and business class. Force all people to go toilet class, like the rest of us. Otherwise you're simply being a contemptible aristo.
Grease up those tumbrel axles!
yellerKat, Brighton, uk
Phrases like "generally accepted", when it comes to global warming, are extraordinarly unhelpfull. Show me the hard evidence exactly how CO2 engenders global warming and you would be more convincing. So far it remains a simple correlation with no evidential causative link established.
Arnold Ward, Weybridge, Surrey, UK
I agree with your sentiments. The airlines know they are living on borrowed time and seem to be going all out to go out with a bang.
I live in Australia and recently I took my son to the airport to see him off on his flight back to the UK for study and I was amazed at the number of people lining up for long haul flights carrying, can you believe it, surfboards... talk about unnecessary travel.
What I find amazing is that we don't seem to be taking advantage of the on-line communications available now that effectively makes the majority of international and domestic business travel a waste of time.
My wife has a friend who has just returned from a trip to KL for a 2 hour business meeting. How silly is that especially when she is time poor and a single mother.
Another example, I was recently told that a lot of the low cost operators are selling tickets as loss leadering prices simply to get captive customers to sell food and merchandise on the flights - again what a waste.
Geoff Petersson, Sydney, Australia
Thank you for this. As you say, the airlines have been very successful at getting that misleading 2% figure established, even in left-wing newspapers. 10% sounds much more likely. And when you add the vehicle journeys made to and from airports, the figure for aviation's carbon emissions goes up further.
It is a myth that a tax on aviation would hit the poorest hardest. To give one example, the average salary of passengers flying out of Standsted was a wapping £50k.
Incidentally, I enjoyed reading Desmond Taylor conforming to the stereotype of Texans.
Will Duffay, London,
Please do not try our patience with all this rot about carbon footprints. It is mantra of the self-anointed elites. None of whom will suffer any consequences from any restrictions placed on us peons. Does anyone believe St AL Gore of Green travels in steerage on a commercial jet.? Or Bono,? perish the thought.. We here in the EVIL oil capital of the world, continuously work for more ways to poison our children with toxic waste, and cancers that are revolting to observe. However, we continue our evil work unfazed by our diabolical evilness. We are on a planet based on carbon life forms.. Who knows what the eco-wacko's are made of. We all assume room temperature. I believe that we all contribute our carbon back into the world, unless it is a zero sum. Does anyone in the eco-wacko world know how many millions of TONS of oil comes out of seepage beneath the pristine oceans. This 'carbon footprint 'tax is just that-a tax. I know where iIwould put my 'carbon foot'. It hurts.
Desmond Taylor, Houston, TX