No plane sailing for global climate - Business - Business - theage.com.au


The environmental damage of airline travel needs to be carefully scrutinised as more and more people fly each year, writes James Norman.
AT A time when there can be little argument that fossil fuels are increasingly scarce and the harmful impact of global warming is more pronounced, widespread high-speed air travel has become one of the great environmental pariahs.
It's so damn easy these days to hop on the internet, choose between one of umpteen web travel portals, find the cheapest possible deal, grab your e-ticket at the airport, pick up a newspaper on the way through customs, and bang — next stop the other side of the world. Too bloody easy, one suspects.
It is a subject on which few can claim the moral high ground — most of us in the affluent world are guilty of excessive aeroplane travel. We all know it is doing damage but still we keep doing it — in record numbers. The cost of hopping in a metal capsule and catapulting across the country or the globe is now so low that such travel has come to be viewed with almost the same casualness of catching a cab across town.
But where will it end, and what are the long term impacts?
The popularity of air travel continues to grow despite the fact that globally airlines lost $US6 billion ($A7 billion) last year as they struggle to accommodate spiralling fuel costs, which now account for almost 25 per cent of airlines' operating costs according to a report issued by the International Air Transport Association.
Profits are most notably down among American carriers, who were $US10 billion in the red last year, compared to $US1.6 billion loss among European airlines. Yet Asian carriers are the exception — they will post $US2 billion in profit this year despite the doubling of airlines' global fuel bill in the past two years.
Meanwhile, according to the Australian Government's Department of Transport and Regional Services, plane travel among Australians is on the increase, reflecting a bigger trend among affluent countries. Last November (the most recent month reported) was the busiest November ever for Australians travelling by plane This continues the trend of record month-on-month traffic levels since September 2003.
What this all indicates is that even though airlines are struggling to turn a profit globally in the face of rising fuel prices, more and more people are still travelling, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region.

Yet, as evidenced in the ALP's recent climate change blueprint, most global climate change treaties (including Kyoto) simply exempt the aviation sector from their CFC (chlorofluorocarbon) emission targets. The chief executive officer of the Energy Supply Association of Australia, Brad Page, recently criticised the ALP policy document for failing to address carbon emissions from the transport sector. "It focuses particularly on one sector, but it says little to nothing about the balance of the emitting sectors," he said.
The environmental damage of airline travel continues to evade scrutiny, despite the fact that aviation is now by far the biggest growth area for CFC emissions. In Europe, aviation is responsible for 10 per cent of the European Union's total emissions. That figure is growing at a dizzying rate of 4.3 per cent per year, meaning emissions will double by 2020 and triple by 2030 according to the United Nations international panel on climate change.
As George Monbiot recently commented in The Guardian, this rise in airline travel and further expansion of an already-overcrowded aviation market is nothing less than an unparalleled disaster for the environment.
Monbiot is researching a book on ways to achieve a 90 per cent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2030. He says he has been surprised to realise that while every other source of global warming he has researched could achieve that target without serious reductions to our freedoms, airline travel is the exception.
It's not just that aviation represents the world's fastest growing source of carbon dioxide emissions. He writes that the burning of aircraft fuel has a "radiative forcing ratio" of around 2.7; what this means is that the total warming effect of aircraft emissions is 2.7 times as great as the effect of the carbon dioxide alone. The water vapour they produce forms ice crystals in the upper troposphere (vapour trails and cirrus clouds) that trap the earth's heat.
Deeply troubling also is the fact that those who generally suffer most directly the impact of the resultant global warming are the very people that often reach the top of the list for the curious global traveller. While it is only the world's wealthiest who have the luxury to fly simply for leisure whenever they get the urge, it is the world's poorest who are most directly hurt by the impact of global warming.
People such as the inhabitants of the tiny Pacific island of Tuvalu, a population of 10 thousand who a few years back made an unsuccessful request to the Australian Government for environmental refugee status, as their island home teetered on the brink of disappearing under the tide of rising sea levels. When Tuvalu representative Siuila Toloa came to Australia as part of a climate justice tour in February 2004 he spoke of how climate change is now leading to the complete obliteration of his island home.

The low island states dotting the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic oceans were affected by the gross impact of climate change, he said. The small island states contribute little to global emissions, but suffer most.
How sadly ironic that all the idealism and romanticism that fuels the ubiquitous modern-day lust for global knowledge and insight into the different shades of humanity that make up the world — the seemingly noble calling to widen ones global lens — could be the very thing that most threatens the sustainability of the planet.
I don't draw attention to the ravaging effects of global travel to suggest that we must all stop catching planes tomorrow. It would be a preposterous challenge that few — me included — could honestly meet. But it is surely high time we got more serious about factoring the environmental impact into the equation when planning trips abroad.
For starters, couldn't we limit ourselves to taking fewer plane trips a year as a beginning point, and catch trains and boats where time is not such a pressing factor? The business sector has to get much more serious about tele-conferencing, as opposed to endless in-person meetings requiring plane travel from all over the globe. And certainly, there needs to be an urgent balancing between the monetary costs of travel and its environmental consequences. There is no justification whatsoever for the train to Sydney costing more than a Virgin Blue flight.
In these fast paced, globalised and fossil fuel-scarce times these are realities we must not avoid confronting if we are to entertain a self perception of being responsible global citizens.
James Norman is a Melbourne journalist and author.