Not to mention, so many companies have been forced to adopt remote working practices and social life has been forced into a sedentary routine. I wonder what the inertial impact of this pandemic will be on emissions over the coming years.
[0] https://www.economist.com/business/2020/03/15/coronavirus-is...
"Unless market constraints are put in place, growth in aviation emissions will result in the sector's emissions amounting to all or nearly all of the annual global CO 2 emissions budget by mid-century, if climate change is to be held to a temperature increase of 2 °C or less."
(from: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Environmental_impact_of_aviation)
"The central case estimate is that aviation's contribution could grow to five percent of the total contribution by 2050 if action is not taken to tackle these emissions, though the highest scenario is 15 percent."
So which is it? 5%/15% or 100% by 2050?
Getting rid of air travel completely would give 0.03 degree tep benefit
Air travel alone is not sufficient to affect climate much... if we were to get rid of fossil fuels on the ground.
So, the real picture is that this 2.5% of global CO2 emissions are caused by as few as 6% of the population, who also are incidentally the richest and bear a high personal carbon footprint in other domains than transportation.
Also please remember that the aviation sector is growing, and therefore its global contribution to GHG emissions will grow as well in the future. Discounting the carbon footprint of the aviation sector based on today's numbers is a mistake.
If you do not want to impede on your ability to travel, you shouldn't object to it for the 94% of the population that want the same thing as you, and when it becomes available to them the aviation sector's emissions will increase 15-fold.
I suspect if emissions were priced into air travel, we would start to see a lot of businesses realizing that video can replace a lot of in-person meetings. we might also see people start to place more value in living close to the people they care about.
They will once their taxes start going up.
> We can get rid of those 40% of emissions without imposing restrictions on people.
Without imposing restrictions on _the people_ who are generating the most CO2 emissions per capita. How do you think this is gonna hold? Air travel should be restricted, or at the very least taxed in proportion to its emissions, because it's cheap, easy to implement, and doesn't impact the survival of millions of people, whereas increasing the price of electricity in developing countries does.
We can use a relatively small amount public funds to make targeted investments in electric grid infrastructure and scaling PV solar and storage. That will drive costs down and coal will disappear without any need for new taxes.
Heck, even if we don't make any public investments to accelerate the process, it will happen soon (< 10y). Coal is on its way out as a fuel for electric powerplants.
> Air travel should be restricted, or at the very least taxed in proportion to its emissions, because it's cheap, easy to implement, and doesn't impact the survival of millions of people, whereas increasing the price of electricity in developing countries does.
Soon enough, either microgrid PV solar and storage or utility-scale PV solar and storage will be cheaper than coal, even in developing countries. Microgrid PV solar and storage is especially attractive in developing countries where the electric grid is typically unreliable.
I do agree that the emissions costs of air travel should be internalized to the ticket price, but the regulation needs to leave enough room to allow airlines to avoid emission taxes by using carbon-neutral fuel.
Where exactly do you expect this carbon neutral fuel to come from?
Fuel=energy, and energy doesn't grow on trees. Well technically biofuel can grow on trees but whatever.
What seems to be forgotten by many "optimistic" folks is that we NEED to cut emissions TODAY, and reduce them by ~7% a year for the next 30 years, to avoid catastrophic warming and feedback loops. By many measures, today is already too late.
Now tell me how we are going to turn these planes carbon neutral today, or even next year, without turning to hypothetical abundant solar energy that will turn atmospheric CO2 into fuel, or turning half of Indonesia's rainforest into palm trees (note that this is not CO2 neutral at all, land change use is one of the biggest culprits today).
The only solution available today is grounding some of those planes. They can take off again when magical carbon neutral fuel is abundant enough that we can afford using it to fly at 850km/h.
Also, would you give up 2.5% of your net worth?
But please don't mention going vegan; that MIGHT only improve the situation by 0.000000001%. It can only be done if on a national scale meat production and consumption is reduced, or we find a way to capture / sequester methane / nox emissions. Factory farming shouldn't have an excuse in that regard, they keep their animals indoors anyway.
also, instead of focusing on optimizing emissions per mile, why not ask how many flights are actually necessary? at the same time that we invest in electric vehicles, cleaner power generation, and public transit, we might also ask if it's really necessary to vacation overseas. we might ask if video chat could replace flying to meet the board or a client.
edit, INCREASED. I'm tired yo.
Your link shows the exact opposite of what you're claiming - air quality has increased significantly.
I'm sure there are no formal studies yet as to whether these work from home policies are a net increase in GHG, either within the utility industry specifically (i.e., excluding savings on cars) or overall, but my gut instinct is that it will be a net increase. Distribution to where residential homes are tends to be less efficient, and it's certainly less efficient to heat, cool, and light 1000 houses all day than 1 office building.
Wait, how does this work? The electricity I use in the office comes from the same place as the electricity I use at home. I'm probably using a little less, as I have a smaller monitor at home.