Stop Flying

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]