Jet aircraft have been flying in airline service since the ill-fated DeHavilland Comet in 1952. Flying was so glamorous that the term “jet set” was coined to described the envied international social group of wealthy people who hop-scotched around the world in what were presumed to be luxurious jet airliners.

Jet travel may no longer be as glamourous, but it’s become vastly more popular. Some 4.6 billion passengers are expected to take wing in 2019, supporting a trillion-dollar travel industry. But not if a growing group of European “flight shamers” and climate change protestors have their way.

Concerned about global climate change, a growing group of Northern European activists have begun to just say no to airline travel. Will such protests gain the momentum achieved by the anti-fossil fuel movement, as over one thousand institutional investors representing $6 trillion in funds have pledged fossil fuel divestment?

The Swedish-born “anti-flying” movement has grown, and its arresting if somber slogans like “flygskam” (“flight shame”) and “tågskryt,” (“train brag”) are being translated into many languages. One flight-boycotting British attorney, who formerly loved to travel, told Reuters, “It’s a tough pill to swallow, but when you look at the issues around climate change, then the sacrifice all of a sudden becomes small.”

“We should all fly less, the future of this planet is at stake,” said actress Dame Emma Thompson. But showing just how difficult such change is, her British Airways flight to London to support the Extinction Rebellion climate change protests reportedly generated two tons of carbon dioxide for each First Class passenger, such as Thompson. A British newspaper noted that the Extinction Rebellion group “insisted that the tons of carbon her flight produced for her to be at their protest was an ‘unfortunate cost in our bigger battle to save the planet’.”

Airline travel is now considered responsible for almost 3% of global carbon emissions today. Left unchecked, emissions will grow along with airline passenger traffic, expected to grow at a 3.5% per year clip through 2036, when 8.2 billion passengers will travel by air.

Anti-airline sentiment seems to have crossed the pond from Europe to America as well. A proposed Green New Deal bill called for the United States to “build out highs-peed rail at a scale where air travel stops becoming necessary.” In an early FAQ, its authors wrote, “We set a goal to get to net-zero, rather than zero emissions, in 10 years because we aren’t sure that we’ll be able to fully get rid of farting cows and airplanes that fast.”

The airline industry mocks such sentiment at its own peril. Although it failed this time around, the Green New Deal proposal was signed by Representative Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez and 67 Congressional co-signers, and may well be a significant issue in the 2020 US elections.

The response of the airline industry has so far been uncertain. At the just-concluded International Air Transport Association (IATA) 75th Annual General Meeting, IATA head Alexandre de Juniac said “Come on, stop calling us polluters,” to reporters at a news conference launching IATA’s ‘global imitative’ to reduce emissions.

The airline industry is announcing a Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA) agreed through the UN’s International Civil Aviation Organization. The goal of CORSA is to cap net CO2 emissions from international aviation at 2020 levels, even as passenger and flight growth continues. This is called carbon-neutral growth, or CNG. “Between 2020 and 2035 (CORSA) will mitigate over 2.5 billion tonnes of CO2 and generate at least $40 billion in finance for carbon reduction initiatives,” said Alexandre de Juniac, IATA’s Director General and CEO.

Global initiatives or not, the airline industry has limited options in terms of how it can continue to grow while cutting emissions, at least in the near future. Having attended the “launches” of three non-flying mockups of eVTOL aircraft (electric vertical take-off and landing) in the last few months, it’s clear that battery-powered, hybrid gas/electric and hydrogen-fueled power plants are a long way from propelling light helicopter-like craft, let alone Airbus A380 replacements.

What could fuel big jets and cut carbon emission are the so-called biofuels. But their availability is strictly limited, forcing the airlines to continue using aviation fuel. Nonetheless, IATA has a 2% target for sustainable fuel by 2025, when additional sources will hopefully come  online.

So what’s left? A number of airlines offer piecework “solutions”, such as the opportunity for passengers to pay more money on their ticket to “offset” the carbon emitted on their behalf. As one would imagine, such initiatives are not very popular. Even at the recent IATA conference only a handful of airline executives said they had purchased off-sets for their ticket to Seoul.

The Scandivanaian airline SAS just announced that it is ending on-board duty-free sales to reduce aircraft weight, save fuel and reduce carbon, as part of its overall strategy to cut emissions by 25% by 2030 (compared with a 2005 baseline.) While the announcement didn’t say how much weight would be saved, it’s hard to imagine it was the equivalent of even one passenger.

And what’s next? Will the airlines begin weighing passengers and charging them a carbon surcharge if they are over the prescribed weight for their height, or offer a “offset-discount” for the svelte?

The airline industry needs to proceed on two tracks if it is to continue to thrive. One, of course, is to explore every technological solution to reduce carbon emissions, from alternative fuels to alternative power plants. The second is to convince an increasingly skeptical public that the airline industry is not only doing everything it can to fight climate change, but that it has made measurable and important progress in doing so.

Otherwise, the multi-billion airline industry will prove a tempting target for ever more vehement climate protest.

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelgoldstein/2019/06/04/does-flight-shaming-over-climate-change-pose-an-existential-threat-to-airlines/