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G8 Summit: Air Travel Speeding Global Warming, Experts Say

Posted on: Tuesday, 5 July 2005, 21:00 CDT

LONDON, Jul. 1, 2005 (IPS/GIN) -- The arrival of huge planeloads of leaders and officials to the G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland will be made "carbon neutral" by the British government. But that may not be enough, experts say.

The carbon neutrality principle emerges from the idea that there will be significant emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane from all the flights headed for the summit July 6-8. These gases are believed to cause global warming, which disrupts climate patterns.

Host Britain has made climate change one of the two priorities at the G8 summit, along with the development of Africa. The question of climate change neutralisation arises just from how the heads of state and government from the Group of Eight leading industrialised nations (United States, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia) get to the summit in Gleneagles in Scotland July 6- 8. The aviation fuel they will burn en route is a major contributor to climate change.

In a show of practicing what they preach, many governments now offer to neutralise those emissions. Just how is not very clear. Most such schemes offer to plant trees or take other measures as an equivalent counter to the amount of carbon thrown into the atmosphere through air travel to the destination for which this "neutrality" is being obtained.

But these measures are far from accurate, and their outcome far from certain.

"Some of these involve tree planting, but there is no guarantee what will happen to the trees," Richard Dyer, an expert on the effect of aviation on climate change with Friends of the Earth, told IPS. "Some of these schemes are good; they can involve introducing renewable energy projects that replace emissions with something cleaner. But all this does not address the fundamental problem of very rapid growth of emissions through air travel."

The rapid growth of air travel needs attention because it is the "fastest growing source of climate changing emissions," Dyer said. "The emissions at altitudes are particularly potent, and studies indicate that they have about two or three times more impact at that level than the equivalent would have on ground level."

That will remain true, says Dyer. "There are no technical fixes on the horizon, no amazing inventions that are likely over the next 50 years that could change the situation. Planes will still by flying on kerosene then, while you could have hydrogen-powered cars."

Governments and airlines will have to curb the rising air trade because technology is not going to do the job, Dyer said. Governments need to rethink several subsidies to air travel, he said.

"Kerosene is not taxed, which makes aviation fuel very cheap compared to other fuels," Dyer said. "In Britain there is no VAT (value added tax) on air travel. Air fares need to stabilise, and rise a bit." Application of due taxes and a cut in duty-free, "which is a form of subsidy," can reduce growth in air travel dramatically, he said.

New research carried out by the Britain-based Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research and commissioned by Friends of the Earth shows that British emission reduction targets will be almost impossible to meet if aviation emissions continue to grow.

The report says there will be "severe consequences for both the UK and the European Union in terms of meeting their obligations to reduce carbon dioxide emissionsa if European governments continue to permit, or indeed promote, historically high levels of aviation growth."

Friends of the Earth says that if the British government allows the aviation sector to grow according to its forecasts, it will find it politically impossible to achieve its own 60 percent carbon dioxide reduction target.

"We cannot allow the aviation sector to destroy our efforts to stop climate change," Peter Ainsworth, the lawmaker who chaired the environmental audit committee in the last Parliament, said in a statement.

Lord Faulkner, who chaired the all-party sustainable aviation parliamentary group said: "The Tyndall report's findings provide a powerful reminder of why it is necessary to reconsider current aviation expansion plans. Tackling climate change is the most important challenge facing the government."

While committing itself to reduction of emissions, the British government has also chosen to promote long-term growth of air travel in its 2003 air transport white paper. The white paper also made bringing intra-EU aviation into the existing EU emissions trading scheme. But the Tyndall report suggests that this will not compensate the damage done.

Source: Global Information Network

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