Wellington lawyer Tom Bennion feels so strongly that we need to act on climate change, that he is taking to the streets dressed as an elephant.
Mr Bennion will walk along Lambton Quay from 12-1pm on Thursday 2 and Friday 3 September 2010, asking people to stop flying.
“Climate change is a very dangerous problem which we need to talk about,” he says.
“We still have time to fix it but we must take urgent action.”
“My message is: let’s talk about the quite big but doable steps we need to take.”
He says stopping all but essential flying is the biggest single change people can make to reduce their personal emissions. A trip to Europe produces around 12 tonnes of CO2e, easily exceeding an entire year’s household emissions from all other sources, including car use. Even a trip to Australia or the Pacific Islands produces around a tonne of carbon per person. And cutting out flying is far easier for families and individuals than trying to do without a car, cutting heating etc.
In the recent Australian election a climate elephant made its appearance at some of the candidates’ press and photo ops. I liked the idea of the elephant in the room. It gets the message across in a simple and friendly fashion.
The British government has talked about the need to cut flights.
Why flying? Why not driving or changing lightbulbs?
A trip to Europe produces around 12 tonnes of CO2e, easily exceeding an entire year’s household emissions from all other sources, including car use (about 2 tonnes per annum). Even a trip to Australia or the Pacific Islands produces around a tonne of carbon per person. And cutting out flying is far easier for families and individuals than trying to do without a car, cutting heating etc.
Cutting out flying also sends a clear message to governments that people are ready for urgent steps to be taken at the national and international level to stabilise the climate.
What do you hope to achieve?
There is a lot of frustration about how to raise public understanding about the short time we have to act. I am hoping that meeting an elephant with a “stop flying” sign will generate discussion about the steps that we have to take today.
Are you serious?
Yes. I think that there is a special responsibility on professions that deal directly with climate issues to tell people how urgent this issue has become. This seemed to me to be the most direct way to do that.
Now that the US Senate has failed to follow the House of Representatives with climate legislation and put a price on carbon, there is talk about what can be done by the executive utilising existing powers. Environmental NGOs are using the legal levers that exist to push this effort forward, and aviation is in the firing line. Earthjustice, Friends of the Earth and others are suing the US government to get it to regulate GHG emissions from ocean-going ships and aircraft.
They are relying on the 2007 decision Massachusetts v Environmental Protection Agency in which the Supreme Court ruled that the EPA was wrong to conclude that it had no power under the Clean Air Act to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases as pollutants. It was also directed the EPA to review its decision not to regulate GHGs from cars.
Following that decision, in December 2009 the EPA issued an endangerment finding that:
“the current and projected concentrations of the six key well-mixed greenhouse gases–carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6)–in the atmosphere threaten the public health and welfare of current and future generations.”
It also found that motor vehicle emissions needed to be regulated.
Alabama, Texas and Virginia are challenging that ruling as having been made in error of law.
In relation to aviation, the legal action by the NGOs seeks findings:
“the Clean Air Act requires that the Administrator “shall … issue proposed emission standards applicable to the emission of any air pollutant from any class or classes of aircraft engines which in his judgment causes, or contributes to, air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.”
….
EPA’s failure to determine whether emissions of greenhouse gases from aircraft engines cause or contribute to air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare pursuant to section 231(a) of the Act, … constitutes unreasonable delay ….
Declare that EPA’s delay in determining whether emissions of greenhouse gases from aircraft engines cause or significantly contribute to air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare pursuant to section 231(a) of the Clean Air Act, … is unreasonable; and direct EPA to issue such a determination within 90 days after entry of this Court’s judgment.
….
Declare that if EPA, upon making a determination as directed under paragraph F above, finds that emissions of greenhouse gases from new aircraft engines cause or contribute to air pollution which may be reasonably anticipated to endanger public health and welfare, then EPA must initiate rulemaking … to establish standards to limit such emissions.
The obtuse and tortuous approach to law making in the US may be an advantage here. It clears the politicians out of the way and allows litigation to direct change and potentially develop a meaningful regime. Some US lawyers are making this point. Here’s hoping.
Greenair Online reports (under the headline “Progress on alternative jet fuels “stunning”, says aviation industry, but commercialization is now the major challenge”) that aviation industry chiefs are generally bullish about biofuels replacing kerosene. It is accepted that biofuels are the only route to reduce aviation carbon emissions. IATA’s Director of Aviation Environment says:
“Other forms of transport have options for alternative sources of energy but aviation right now really only has biofuels that it can benefit from and we need full support to move forward on this.”
“There are several constraints that limit the alternative fuel choices that the industry is considering: the very large investment in the existing fleet and jet fuel distribution system, and the typical lifetime of aircraft. These factors, coupled with stringent certification requirements for fuels, mean that airlines are not considering any fuel that is not a ‘drop-in’ replacement for petroleum-derived jet fuel.”
It seems the significant progress is being made in developing biofuels for airlines. This is not surprising. Aerospace engineering is at the cutting edge of development of technology generally, and has an acute emissions problem:
“Current global jet fuel demand is around 5 million barrels per day, or 5.8% of total global oil consumption. A paper published in April by Mohammad Mazraati of OPEC forecasted that even with current trends of fuel intensity improvements by the aviation industry, jet fuel demand could increase by a further 2.7 million barrels per day by 2030.”
Those 2 factors combined make it an important sector to watch for speed of application of new technology reducing emissions.
The Greenair item notes bullish prospects for biofuels. For example:
“Solazyme’s technology, which uses algae to convert biomass to oil using indirect photosynthesis, once scaled up to full commercial scale production, could supply around 50 to 100 million gallons per year of cost-competitive jet biofuel at the $60-80 a barrel range, according to Isaacs. Solazyme already has in place contracts with the US navy and air force to supply its jet biofuel product.”
But using the Greenair figures, the industry would require at least 2810 million barrels per annum for aviation by 2030. At 42 gallons per barrel that is roughly 118,000 million gallons. So Solazyme could provide 0.08% of the annual requirement. It will have to get cracking, since Solazyme currently produces no commercial biofuel at all.
IATA is quoted referring to a report by a UK consultancy:
“IATA’s Steele pointed to the recent study carried by consultants E4tech on behalf of the UK’s Committee on Climate Change that showed a best case scenario for a full replacement of jet kerosene by biofuels by 2035 and a worse case of 40% replacement by 2050. “In reality, I think it will be somewhere between the two, and we in the industry will be trying to move things forward as quickly as we can.”
Some of the claims of the energy companies which are noted in that report are spectacular, for example:
“The US algae company Sapphire Energy, has said that it will reach the commercial scale by 2011 producing 1m gallons/yr, 100m gallons/yr by 2018 and 1bn gallons/yr by 2025.”
But its caveats are significant. Of the Sapphire Energy claim the report notes:
“It is impossible to know at this stage whether this kind of ramp up is actually feasible, without detailed knowledge of the technical progress they have made to date. However, the reality is likely to be that algae biofuels are a mid-term technology option, e.g. 2020 onwards, and unlikely to be produced in significant volumes in the near term.”
And the report makes this comment on the carbon cost of producing biofuels on land:
“The aviation sector is highly aware of the potential sustainability impacts of biofuels production, including the GHG and other impacts of direct land use change. For example, members of the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Users group (SAFUG) have signed up to a sustainability pledge which involves avoiding biofuels produced from feedstocks with high biodiversity impacts, low GHG savings, or where high conservation value or native eco-system lands are converted. As a result, we have assumed that it is unlikely that biofuels for aviation will be produced on land directly converted from high carbon stock or high biodiversity land, and no impact of direct land use change has been included in our GHG figures.”
In other words, potential GHG leakage from land use changes to produce over 100,000 million gallons of aviation biofuel per annum have not been assessed.
Nor can leakage from indirect land use change brought about by using land for biofuels be easily assessed:
“Indirect land use change is less clear; establishing the causes of land use change, and the magnitude of the impact that can be indirectly attributed to production of bioenergy feedstocks, is the subject of considerable current global research. Although some approaches have been developed, there is as yet no agreement on the results, or on the means of incorporating this into biofuels policy. In particular, there is no agreement on a quantitative factor that can be included in GHG calculations for individual biofuels. As a result, we do not include an indirect land use change factor in the GHG data given here.”
The report considers how much planted land might be required for biofuels. It begins on a cautious but overall sanguine note:
“… in the long term, there is a large energy crop potential, without competition with land for food, and without deforestation or loss of protected areas. However, this does not mean that agricultural expansion will happen on the available areas identified, as a result of a large number of factors including the agricultural markets and policies of all countries worldwide. It will be important to ensure that this expansion does happen on the areas where impacts are low (abandoned agricultural land, low carbon stock pasture) rather than on arable land, or on high carbon stock lands.”
The report goes on to gives rough estimates for the areas of land required to provide all of aviation’s estimated fuel demand by 2050:
On a biomass-to-liquid fuel basis, this would require 254 million hectares of woody energy crops.
Providing it all by jatropha growing would require 477 million hectares or 34% of the world’s total current current arable area.
By algae production it would require around 31,000 algae plants of 1000 ha each, taking up 31 million hectares or 2% of the world’s total current arable area.
Ethanol production using Brazilian sugar cane would require 185 million hectares of land, equivalent to 13% of current global arable land.
The report concludes that it is “very unlikely” that conventional crops and a biomass-to-liquid approach (eg palm oil) would provide aviation biofuels on these kinds of scales. Unconventional crops or feedstocks have better prospects:
“Scenarios where conventional crops are not used require a relatively small proportion of the identified resource for lignocellulosic materials, relatively small areas for algae, and reasonable areas for jatropha and camelina. It is important to remember that the type of land used for these crops could be lower quality land, in the case of energy crops, jatropha and camelina, and any land type in the case of algae.
*The highest use of lignocellulosic materials is in the High scenario, where supplying 100% of the 2050 jet demand would require 200Mha of land for energy crops (equivalent to 12% of the projected energy crop resource) or 8% of the total projected lignocellulosic material resource, for BTL and SH together.
*The highest use of new oil crops is in the Central (High) scenario, where 19Mha jatropha, 20Mha camelina and 7Mha algae plants would be required. The total can be compared with the current figures of 14Mha for palm, 30Mha for rapeseed, and 90Mha for soybeans.”
All of this effort, assuming it could be done sustainably and with no or limited carbon leakage, and in the midst of heatwaves, wildfires, food shortages etc, and efforts to reduce all other emissions to zero, would presumably be made to enable people to continue to take their holidays abroad, make shopping trips to exotic places, business trips that could easily be replaced by video conferencing and perhaps trips just to top up frequent flyer miles.
I think senior airline officials are involved in magical thinking, don’t you? Its time to limit flying.
According to Greenaironline, the NZ ETS is the “first major carbon emissions trading scheme to affect airlines”. It does so by imposing a requirement to purchase carbon credits on companies which import or remove fuel at more than 50,000 litres a year from NZ refineries. Those fuels include aviation gas.
The scheme mainly hits domestic airlines. It does not affect international flights fueled outside NZ. However, purchasers of more than 10 million litres of aviation fuel per annum can choose to opt into the scheme. Air NZ has elected to do so. This has been described as a hedging opportunity against future carbon prices or a branding exercise or both.
The scheme is “expected to add around three New Zealand cents (two US cents) to a litre of jet fuel.” Air NZ expects to face, in the first 30-month transition phase of the scheme, “an additional NZ$6 million ($4.16m) cost on its domestic jet fuel consumption” and has notified customers that domestic air fares might see a NZ$1 to $2 fare rise.
Although modest in scope, it is significant that in a small country, far removed from much of the world and highly dependent on air travel, the first charges of airline travel explictly related to climate change have now been imposed.
NZ under its National-led coalition government had severely trimmed the emissions trading scheme developed under the previous Labour-led coalition last government, and did so on the basis that it should be a follower and not a leader. But on this matter the lead appears to have been taken.
So it is a matter for modest celebration. Just how modest can be gauged from other news which shows a bad situation getting rapidly worse, including ominous signs that extreme weather events are on a serious upswing. Perhaps most alarming have been the record smashing temperatures across Africa:
“Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Chad, Niger, Pakistan, and Myanmar have all set new records for their hottest temperatures of all time over the past six weeks. The remarkable heat continued over Africa and Asia late this week. The Asian portion of Russia recorded its highest temperate in history yesterday, when the mercury hit 42.3°C (108.1°F) at Belogorsk, near the Amur River border with China. The previous record was 41.7°C (107.1°F) at nearby Aksha on July 21, 2004. (The record for European Russia is 43.8°C–110.8°F–set on August 6, 1940, at Alexandrov Gaj near the border with Kazakhstan.) Also, on Thursday, Sudan recorded its hottest temperature in its history when the mercury rose to 49.6°C (121.3°F) at Dongola. The previous record was 49.5°C (121.1°F) set in July 1987 in Aba Hamed.We’ve now had eight countries in Asia and Africa, plus the Asian portion of Russia, that have beaten their all-time hottest temperature record during the past two months. This includes Asia’s hottest temperature of all-time, the astonishing 53.5°C (128.3°F) mark set on May 26 in Pakistan.”
The New York Times reports that the new coalition government in Britain has “canceled longstanding plans to build a third runway at Heathrow Airport” and will also “refuse to approve new runways at Gatwick and Stansted, London’s second-string airports.”
The worry is the growth trends for emissions from air travel:
The British government has calculated that aviation emissions accounted for just 6 percent of the country’s carbon dioxide emissions in 2006. But it concluded in a report that aviation could contribute up to a quarter of those emissions by 2030.
In the United States, the number of general aviation hours is forecast to grow an average of 1.8 percent a year, and to be 60 percent greater by 2025 than it is now, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. While airlines have worked hard to improve airplane efficiency, those efforts are dwarfed by the upward trend in flying.
An important factor in the decision is Britain’ s Climate Change Act 2008 which requires the country to reduce emissions by at least 34 percent by 2020 from 1990 levels.
“The inclusion of international aviation and shipping emissions in the Act or an explanation to Parliament why not – by 31 December 2012. The Committee on Climate Change is required to advise the Government on the consequences of including emissions from international aviation and shipping in the Act’s targets and budgets. Projected emissions from international aviation and shipping must be taken into account in making decisions on carbon budgets.”
The article points out that Britain is the only country in the world to actually slash runway building plans because of concerns about climate change.
The Guardian online has a very interesting article summarising the state of play with airline emissions and chances for reductions in the future from a UK perspective. Main takeaways are:
“US commercial airlines alone burn about 50 million gallons of kerosene (the main aviation fuel) every day.”
“A fuel tax on domestic [UK] flights that increased the price of air travel by 50% could cut carbon emissions by one million tonnes a year.”
“The Sustainable Aviation Fuel Group, an industry consortium, wants planes to use 600 million gallons of biofuel a year by 2015.”
How will it achieve that?
“An algal pond the size of Belgium could meet all aviation’s current fuel needs” so it is favoured over “”a field the size of the EU” to grow that much from plant-based biofuels.”
However:
There’s still a big climate problem even if you use algal biofuel instead of kerosene to cut the CO2, he says. The ‘radiative forcing’ effect from emissions such as nitrogen oxides (NOx) and water vapour (contrails) at high altitudes causes at least half a plane’s climate change impact, and would remain largely unaffected by a move to biofuels. Even if these succeeded in cutting aviation’s climate impact by as much as 30%, as their proponents hope, he adds, “a return to aviation growth could negate that in just five years. Biofuels do not change the game”, he concludes. “The industry will have to make many more fundamental changes if it is to grow sustainably.”
The article then looks at airships, flying wings, solar planes, more efficient air traffic management, even nuclear planes, all with either low efficiencies and/or large lead in times.
The article concludes that its hard to see how our current levels of flying can be sustained if carbon emissions are to be reduced.
Although the article doesnt deal in any depth with what a world might look like with much less air travel, it contains an interesting link to an article which discusses a study of how flying might look in 2023. Entitled “Tourism 2023. Four scenarios, a vision and a strategy for UK outbound travel and tourism” the full study is a fascinating read, and includes examples of holidays that might be taken under each scenario. For instance, under the scenario which contemplates a spike in oil prices as well as climate change:
The solo traveller
The invitation for the wedding arrived 16 months early. Anna was excited, and absolutely desperate to go to her brother’s big day. But the only problem is that he moved to Australia ten years ago. She definitely won’t be able to afford an airfare so she’s arranged with her employer to roll two years holiday into one and take a three-month break to make the journey overland. Anna’s booked through one of the many online integrated travel portals, and paid her supermarket in advance for the entire trip. Most of her accommodation along the way will be on the exciting sleeper trains, coaches and ships that provide surprisingly decent accommodation while on the move. She’s arranged accommodation in advance in the places she’ll be stopping on the way – all offered for free through a popular social networking site. Important cost savings for that wedding present!
Importantly, the study is supported by major UK aviation stakeholders including British Airways and Thomas Cook.
This article contains this summary which I like:
By 2023, the Easyjet weekend may well be a thing of the past. An increasingly plausible scenario is that of the long vacation – a couple of months at least, but only every couple of years. More people want extended trips like these to be part of life’s rhythm, and companies are beginning to find that supporting staff to do so improves motivation and makes them more likely to stick around. Missing out on a few mini breaks in order to justify that longer haul makes sense in carbon budget terms, too.
And the destinations love it. Hoteliers and resort managers find it easier to secure bookings for weeks at a stretch; less turnover is less work.
So, you have breakfast in bed, load the latest Booker shortlist or sci-fi trilogy onto your iRead, and board the ‘comfycarriage’ of the high speed train to Tirana. Your ticket lets you stop off at any point on the way for as long as you please, so you’re hoping to have a few days with old friends in Munich en route. Or, with all that time on your hands, you decide to go further afield. You pack your laptop and camera and drift over the Atlantic on a sleek, silent airship. You spend hours gazing at the 360° views, catch up with friends in the virtual chat booth, dine well, sleep well, and use up just 20% of your carbon budget for the year.
I hope my kids get to enjoy this. For their sake, we need to reduce unnecessary jet travel asap, or there is a good chance we dont get there at all.
