Should I give up flying?

A plane: Should I give up flying to reduce my carbon footprint?

Picking through the carbon, contrails and controversy, Duncan Clark seeks out the truth about air travel and climate change

No subject raises the temperature of the climate change debate as much as air travel. On the one hand, campaigners such as George Monbiot say aviation is so bad that “we are all killers… until we stop flying”. But on the other hand, we’re frequently told that aviation accounts for just a tiny proportion of global emissions.

The British Air Line Pilots’ Associtation (BALPA) claims that many alternative forms of transport are more polluting than planes: “Encouraging people to switch from air travel to rail, coach or sea transport … would be counterproductive in trying to reduce atmospheric emissions.”

So who’s right? Is it possible to fly with a clear conscience? Or is an ethical flight a contradiction in terms?

The growth and growth of air travel

When the Wright brothers made the first controlled flights in 1903, they could hardly have imagined how popular flying would become within a century. The first commercial plane was launched in 1952 –  since then, the number of air passengers has rocketed more than fifty-fold.

The UK has particularly busy skies – and they’re quickly getting even busier. Since 1990, partly thanks to low-budget airlines, such as EasyJet and Ryanair, the number of passengers taking off from UK airports has doubled to around 200 million. The government expects this to soar to 465 million by 2030.

The footprint of a flight

An individual flight’s impact on the climate hinges principally on distance. On a long trip, such as London to Cape Town, a couple flying return can cause the equivalent of around 7.5 tonnes of CO2 emissions. That’s as much as the typical UK car emits in two full years, or the average carbon footprint of a UK citizen over six months.

Shorter flights are less damaging overall, but even a very short flight still creates a lot of carbon because so much fuel is used in take-off. A family of four taking two holidays within Europe a year can easily clock up the equivalent of 2.5 tonnes of CO2. That’s as much as the average African emits in three years.

CO2 and beyond

So how much does all this flying contribute to climate change? The most commonly cited figure is that aviation contributes just 2 per cent of global CO2 emissions. But this figure is rather misleading. For starters, it dates back to 1992 – before the ascendancy of budget airlines.

Moreover, CO2 is only one part of the picture. Jet engines also produce nitrous oxides and soot as well as water vapour, which freeze to leave cloud-like vapour trails seen behind aircraft on clear days. Scientists estimate that these extra emissions more than double the warming effect of a flight.

Clearly, the total impact of air travel is far greater than often claimed. But if you’re trying to decide whether to cut back on flying, the total impact of aviation isn’t particularly relevant. More important is how much it contributes to your carbon footprint.

A plane: Should I give up flying to reduce my carbon footprint?

The big picture

If these figures sound bad, they get even scarier when you consider our commitment to reducing carbon emissions.

In 2006, the Tyndall Centre tried to reconcile the UK government’s plans to reduce carbon emissions by 60 per cent by 2050 with its plans for the growth of air travel. They reached a startling conclusion: if we continue at the current rate, the UK could see aviation accounting for “between 50 per cent and 100 per cent” of its total permissible carbon emissions by 2050.

In other words, unless we cut back on flights, the UK has almost no chance of reducing its emissions to a safe level. And these figures take into account expected improvements in aircraft efficiency.

Alternatives

So what about those claims in BALPA’s report that planes are no worse than trains or cars? Well, strangely enough, that very same report later acknowledges that trains are much greener than planes – this comes as no surprise really.

Other research has shown rail to emit as much as 11 times less CO2 than flying – or 30 times less if you include non-carbon emissions.

What about cars? Well, the pilots’ union report assumes that your vehicle emits a whopping 400 grams of CO2 per kilometre. The closest match I could find for such a figure was that classic family car … a Ferrari Spider! A small family car actually emits around a third of that amount.

Amazingly, in BALPA’s own report, even a Ferrari carrying just two people comes out greener than flying over short distances. Things reverse over longer distances, but that doesn’t seem very relevant. After all, when did you last drive a Ferrari thousands of miles?

Travelling responsibly

In my opinion, something has got to give – either our love of flying or our chance of tackling climate change. Flying is not inherently wrong. It’s just that it is almost impossible to keep your carbon footprint at a sustainable level if you fly regularly – especially to long-haul destinations.

If you really want to be green, my advice would be think about where you travel to and how you get there. Favour trains or small cars over planes whenever possible – much of Europe is accessible by high-speed trains and travelling this way makes it part of the adventure.

When you do fly, stay long enough to make it worthwhile and try to stick to destinations that aren’t too far. Do you really need a week in Goa when there are beautiful beaches in Europe?

You can, of course, offset the emissions of your flights using a service such as Climate Care or the Carbon Neutral Company. But whether that makes it all OK is another debate entirely.