In spite of the best efforts of the multi-billion euro air industry to re-invent itself as a global leader in sustainability, the fact remains that air travel is a non-essential activity that enables the richest ten percent of the world's citizens to travel to places they would previously not have travelled to at all, or only occasionally.
Just as the enormously powerful tobacco industry resorted to misinformation and barefaced lies to obscure the issue or reassure the public that tobacco smoking was a harmless pastime, representatives of the air industry go to enormous lengths to undermine sensible proposals to rein in air travel or at least make it accountable for the damage it does.
Nowhere is this more apparent than in the case of Ryanair, one of Europe's most rapidly expanding airlines. Its CEO Michael O'Leary, who was recently described as the unacceptable face of capitalism, has attempted to portray himself as a populist leader who is doing all he can to protect the basic' right' of citizens to travel by air as much as they want.. and especially if it is helping increase the profits of his airline and by definition lining his own pockets. Whether O'Leary is clever and cunning or simply insane, - thus avoiding any possibility of standing trial for energy crimes on some future day of reckoning when those responsible for destroying planet earth are called to account - is a moot point.
The European Environmental Agency in its 2006 report on aviation and climate change (see below) concluded that "the contribution of aviation to climate change is currently 4 to 9 percent at the global level and 5 to 12 percent in the EU". The same reports refers to a number of cases of deliberate misinformation by the airline industry and adds that "today's passenger aircraft are no more fuel efficient than those that flew half a century ago".
Given the higher number of flights per capita in some European countries, notably Ireland and the UK, the contribution of aviation to climate change in these countries can be expected to be correspondingly higher. In Ireland for example, aviation accounts for 5.3 percent of all energy used in the country, and when factoring in the extra forcing effect of aviation , this increases the contribution to climate change to between 10.6 percent and 26.4 percent.
The forcing effect refers to the additional climate change related impacts. In the case of aviation, this includes factors such as the additional impact of CO2 emissions when released at cruising altitude of 10,000 meters and also the global warming effect of aviation induced water vapour. Water vapour is a potent greenhouse gas when released high in the atmosphere.
The forcing effect of aviation is generally quoted as 2.7 (meaning the global warming effect of aviation is taken as being 2.7 times as great as would be indicated by CO2 emissions alone). However the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has concluded the exact forcing effect is unclear and could be anywhere between a factor of 2 and a factor of 5.
But even taking the 2.7 figure, this suggests that the contribution by aviation to climate change in Ireland is in the region of 14 percent of the national total, or seven times as great as O' Leary claims.
Aviation enjoys many economic advantages over other modes of transportation simply because there is no tax paid on aviation fuel. The effect of this is to make air travel artificially cheap. In effect, aviation is subsidised at the expense of more sustainable modes of travel. Owing to the lack of international resolve to impose taxes on aviation fuel (due in no small part to the intransigence of the United States on this issue) it then falls on individual governments to address this issue. It is no surprise the same governments lack the courage to impose heavy taxation on air travel. Logically, such taxes should be set at a level which reflects the huge environmental damage caused by aviation.
Fortunately, there are signs that air travel may die a natural death thanks to rising energy prices and the onset of economic recession. However, even another 10 years of mass air travel will place an unacceptably high burden on diminishing fossil fuel resources while simultaneously hastening humanity's progress to climate catastrophe.
While legislative action at national and international level would be most welcome, the individual who wishes to show solidarity with those who will be most impacted upon by resource depletion and climate change can do so very easily: simply stop flying.
The European Environmental Agency report on aviation can be accessed below:
