Flying high on greenhouse gas

With falling prices and rising incomes Australians are flying more than ever before. But climate change is going to change all this. How are we going to deal with our addiction to flying?

Aviation is currently responsible for a small proportion of greenhouse gas emissions, around 2 per cent of Australia’s total emissions.

Because of this, the aviation industry and governments have shown little regard for the impacts of aviation on the atmosphere. In fact, aviation policy at the federal and state level actively promotes the expansion of airports and the aviation industry. The benefits of inbound tourism are praised by all.

However, the Australia Institute has recently made projections of aviation emissions in Australia to 2050 and found that, if left unchecked, continued growth of the industry could derail efforts to tackle global warming.

Between 2005 and 2050, emissions from aviation are expected to rise by more than 250 per cent. This rate of growth is incompatible with the emission reduction targets that are needed to avoid dangerous climate change.

The science suggests that Australia needs to cut its emissions by 80 per cent by 2050. Yet if the aviation industry continues under business-as-usual conditions, it could consume more than Australia’s entire emissions allowance in 2050.

Even if Australia adopts a lower target of 60 per cent reductions by 2050, as the Labor Party has proposed, aviation could still gobble up more than half Australia’s emissions allowance by the middle of the century.

These projections point to one conclusion: if nothing is done to curb aviation emissions, we won’t be able to meet the targets that are necessary to deal with global warming.

In many other areas, like electricity generation and land-based transport, technology can offer solutions. For example, we can generate electricity from wind and solar and drive electric cars. The same cannot be said for aviation.

There is no available technology that can significantly reduce aviation emissions. Basically, planes need to burn kerosene to stay in the air. If a technological breakthrough does occur, it will take decades to implement because of the need to replace the existing aircraft fleets and supporting infrastructure.

Dealing with aviation emissions therefore means cutting back on the amount we fly. To ensure this occurs, the government should immediately introduce a $30 greenhouse charge on flights: a small amount that would need to be ramped up quickly.

Beyond this, more comprehensive measures must be put in place to reduce aviation demand, promote innovation and encourage the substitution of air travel with low-emission alternatives.

This will require the inclusion of aviation in a Kyoto-style emissions trading scheme. Governments and the private sector also need to invest in substitutes for air travel like rail and telecommunications infrastructure.

A high-speed railway line running between Sydney and Melbourne could substantially reduce aviation emissions. And improved video-conferencing services would reduce the need for people to travel for business.

The aviation and tourism industries will no doubt protest about the economic ramifications of these measures. But we have a choice: accept the relatively small costs associated with dealing with global warming now, or incur much larger costs if we do nothing.

For the tourism industry, this means accepting fewer international tourists as the price of protecting major tourism assets like the Great Barrier Reef and Kakadu National Park that are likely be decimated by global warming.

There will also be winners from these measures, most obviously rural and regional tourism operators. If we can’t travel overseas as often as we have in the past, we’ll spend more of our tourist dollars in domestic destinations, many of which are located in rural and regional areas.

In Europe, governments have already begun to come to terms with the threat posed by continuous growth of aviation. The British Government has introduced a small tax on domestic flights in an attempt to curb demand. Similarly, by 2011 aviation will be included in Europe’s emissions trading scheme.

To date, the Federal Government has dragged its feet on climate change, grasping at any excuse not to act. The resurgence of the Labor Party has forced the Government to rethink its message and, at the least, to sound like it is committed to do something about the problem.

Here is a litmus test of the Government’s bona fides. If it is really committed to addressing climate change, it would put in place the necessary measures to begin to curb aviation emissions and restructure the transport sector.