This week Wizz Air in Europe introduced a “season ticket” offering as many flights as you can take for £534 ($685) to 800 destinations on the budget carrier’s network, provided you book within 72 hours of departure.
With more passengers, its planes will get heavier and emit more carbon. And, with its load factor already well over 90%, presumably Wizz Air intends to operate more flights, too.
In the United States, 12% of people take 66% of all flights. In the United Kingdom 20% took 75% of all flights. But the impact of those carbon emissions will affect every person on earth. Marketing ploys designed to entice already frequent flyers to fly still more are irresponsible at best.
A frequent flyer levy
Some have argued that the solution to this is a frequent flyer levy, where your first flight is subject to no departure tax, but every flight after that is charged an increasing rate. The intention is to reduce how much we fly, but not to penalize those less well off.
I suspect that in practice this would be very hard to implement, but I’d like to see a thorough review of it. That said, we face far greater challenges than this in creating the right regulation of the aviation sector to enable it to reach net zero by 2050 or before.
National carbon budgets
Under the Paris Agreement (the most important climate change treaty) 193 countries set climate action plans with targets for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions, known as their Nationally Determined Contribution or NDC.
You would expect aviation’s emissions to be counted in these NDCs. However, the Paris Agreement does not directly cover aviation’s emissions. So essentially, a government can set and report on its progress to net zero without needing to account for aviation’s emissions or do anything to reduce them.
Taxation of aviation fuel
Aviation fuel, kerosene, is one of the few untaxed fuels in the world, a privilege that goes back to 1944. Some countries have levied or attempted to levy a tax on domestic flights, but the majority of kerosene goes untaxed and it is one reason why in many countries aviation is relatively cheap compared to rail travel, which is much lower in carbon emissions.
A fair tax on aviation fuel would raise tens of billions of dollars or more a year. Some estimates suggest it would raise more than $8 billion from the U.K. alone. If ring-fenced, this money could be used to reduce aviation’s emissions.
Last week, Air New Zealand decided to drop its 2030 target to cut carbon emissions, partly because of a lack of availability of sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) – which are made from biomass including vegetable waste.
The international airlines body IATA responded that we need to scale up solutions including sustainable aviation fuel as well as emerging technologies. But if we’re serious about this, we have to be serious about funding it – and a fair tax on kerosene would make a massive contribution.
Lack of global regulation
By its very nature, aviation is a global industry, and regulating its emissions will take a global approach – otherwise airlines can replan routes and refueling to take advantage of countries with lower regulation.
Since 2012 the EU has attempted to tackle aviation emissions through a “cap and trade scheme” where emission limits are set and allowances can be traded.
But agreeing any form of global regulation of aviation emissions has been problematic, to say the least. One global marketplace measure - a carbon reduction and offset scheme called CORSIA - has been led by the Civil Aviation Authority. But its roll out is slow – not intended to be complete by 2035 – and only 60% of countries have signed up (China and India have not yet, but the U.S. has).
However, for either scheme to be successful in carbon reduction and meeting net zero by 2050 we’ll require rapid development of new technologies, planes and production and use of SAF.
Without governments including aviation in their carbon budgets, funding R&D or taxing aviation fuel to do so, it’s not clear where the massive funding required for this transformation will come from.
How big is the problem and what needs to be done?
It’s a big problem and will get much bigger. Currently aviation accounts for 2.5% of global CO2 emissions and 4% of greenhouse gas emissions.
However, it’s one of the fastest growing contributors and with other sectors decarbonizing, aviation’s share of total emissions will quickly grow. A recent paper in Nature suggested aviation could account for 22% of all emissions by 2050.
What needs to happen?
- Include aviation emissions in government NDC’s, to make it a priority.
- Create a $100 billion annual funding package for SAF and new technologies by increased government support and a tax on aviation fuel.
- Work to fully globalize “cap and trade” market-based regulation.
- Examine whether a frequent flyer levy or similar initiative could work in practice.
What can I or my business do?
Carbon reduction at the scale and pace we need can only come through global, systemic change.
I founded a holiday company – I’m not anti-flying. But the Wizz Airs of the world have enjoyed a free pass for too long. Governments must make big polluters pay their way.
They’re happy enough taxing your car fuel, after all.
But we can all help encourage change – at home and away.
Through research, we identified the largest contributors to a holiday's CO2 emissions as transport, energy used by accommodations and food. So until we have sustainable commercial aviation – and I do believe that will be possible – we advise customers to take longer holidays but fewer flights.
We’re also working with our supply chain to choose accommodations powered by renewable energy and increase plant-based food options.
Aside from flying less, perhaps the greatest impact we can all have – individually or as a business – is to ensure our bank and energy suppliers don’t invest in fossil fuels. If they are - switch. Earlier this year Responsible Travel left Barclays, which invested $16 billion into fossil fuels in 2022 alone, for the commercial-only Unity Trust Bank, with an ethical investment portfolio. It’s one small way we can make a meaningful difference.
While we wait impatiently for regulators to act, we can each play our part in curbing emissions. Enough of us pressing for change is cause for hope. And there’s power in that.
