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Air travel
The CO2 emitted from the fuel burned in the engines of aircraft contributes to climate change. The Stern Review reported that air travel accounts for about 1.6% of total global CO2 emissions. However, aviation is the fastest growing form of transportation and its growth is threatening progress to reduce emissions in other areas. A tripling of air travel is expected over the next four decades contributing to 2.5% of total emissions.
Although this seems a comparatively small figure, the actual impact of these emissions is much greater than expected. This is because greenhouse gases are more potent when released at altitude – it is thought they may have twice the warming effect of emissions at lower altitude because greenhouse gases at high levels absorb and retain heat more effectively than at lower altitudes. Furthermore, the water vapour and particles that are also spewed from aircraft engines create contrails at high altitudes. Contrails will often spread out and freeze to form large cirrus clouds that also help prevent the earth’s heat from escaping into space. The warming effect of contrail clouds appears to be further enhanced at night. Thus, by 2050 aviation could account for 5% of human induced climate change.
What can we do to reduce the effects on climate change of air travel? Aircraft technology is constantly improving and the next generation of long-haul jets such as Boeing 787s will be 40-50% more fuel efficient than current aircraft. However, with air travel growing so quickly, behavioural changes are also required.
One thing we can do is try to fly less for business and tourism reasons and when we do fly for pleasure, stay longer.
The other step we can take is to offset our air travel. This involves paying a little extra money each time you travel to an offsetting organisation that invests your money in a project that absorbs a matching amount of CO2. This can be done in various ways such as planting new forests or investing in renewable energy projects that displace the use of fossil fuels. See section on Carbon Neutrality for more infomation.
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