This was the “Degrowth of Aviation” Conference
12 – 14th of July 2019 in Barcelona
The Stay Grounded network, together with civil society organisations and the Institute for Ecological Sciences and Technology ICTA in Barcelona, organized the conference “Degrowth of Aviation”. The conference brought together 200 people from social movements, NGOs and academia in order to discuss concrete measures and strategies to reduce air traffic. As Barcelona is one of the cities getting overcrowded by tourism, involving serious environmental, health, housing and other social problems, special links were made to movements for a just and environmentally sound tourism.
Find pictures about the conference and the actions on Flickr (Photos made by Christine Tyler).
Find videos on Twitter & Facebook.
Find the press release here and the press review here.
Why this Conference?
Aviation and its damaging impact on climate change is starting to be discussed more and more. The problem, however, is, that none of the current strategies that target aviation‘s climate impact actually challenges the constant growth of the aviation sector. Instead, they pretend that flying could, in the future, become „climate neutral“ through technical improvements, biofuels and offsetting.
The Stay Grounded Network, in its position paper, makes clear that those are false solutions. The study „The Illusion of Green Flying“ points out the different short-falls and problems of the aviation sector‘s greenwashing strategy. The current instruments don‘t tackle the problem and shift the discussion away from the fact that we need to radically reduce aviation, especially in countries of the Global North. This is a necessary step to reach a just and ecological mobility system.
Decarbonizing aviation is an illusion – it‘s time to degrow aviation
So if the only solution is degrowth of the aviation sector and reducing flights – how do we get there? Aviation is closely linked with our transport system, with tourism, energy and global trade – and with our economic system based on constant growth and competition. Fast mobility is necessary for a capitalist globalized system – yet the faster, the more climate-harmful it is. Climate justice can only be achieved by questioning this model, by reorganizing mobility, regionalizing the economy, and overcoming global inequity. Still, there are still many steps to be taken towards this systemic change needed.
A mere reform of taxation schemes will not ultimately bring about the needed transformation – but which steps bring is closer to there, and which lead us away from those visions of an ecological and just society? Current policies of subsidization and non-taxation of the aviation sector are totally unjust and environmentally problematic. They directly feed the high, unrestrained growth of the aviation industry, leading to widespread, problematic hyper-mobile lifestyle choices, and travel and the normality of goods from everywhere anytime. In this conference, we discuss different instruments that could help to reduce aviation and the economic and social normalities it creates.
We excluded some potential measures right away because of being unjust in creating more problems than they solve, or because they don‘t have the capacity to bring about systemic changes. Among them are emissions trading, offsetting, „alternative“ fuels (biofuels, power to liquid), and the sole focus on efficiency of the engines. This conference will shift the discussion towards measures that might be more effective.
Let‘s start the discussion
- The conference will discuss a series of questions, among them:
- Does it make more sense to demand for market and price instruments (like different taxation) or to implement regulatory instruments like limits to the numbers of flight, moratoriums on airport projects or shutting down certain airports? Or all of them?
- Does it make more sense to work bottom-up (individual behaviour change, voluntary changes of travel policies, grassroots pressure from below) or top-down (policy changes)? Or how can they play together in order to achieve systemic change?
- What kind of taxation system would be socially just and lead towards a reduction of flights?
- What role do institutions play in the rising demand for flights? How can and should they change their travel policies, to support environmentally friendly ways of travelling?
- What kind of alternatives to flying exist and what is needed to improve them?
- What role does tourism play in the discussion about degrowth of aviation? Do we need caps on tourism and if yes, how can that work?
The idea of the conference is to get into serious discussions about concrete ways to degrow aviation. Some of them might work within the current system. Some of them might challenge its foundations. They might lead towards the question of whether individual liberty should be restricted at the point where it violates the liberty of others. They should include considerations about the differences between countries in the Global North and the Global South and what kind of role international agreements and solutions must play.
However there won‘t be the space – and even the need – to mutually agree on a common manifesto or strategy. All of the discussed measures and strategies have their advantages and disadvantages, but their largest disadvantage is, that they are not publicly discussed the way they should. In the conference, we will fill this gap and hope to produce some outcomes that can be published as a collection of possible strategies to for degrowth of aviation in a just and sustainable way, and that can feed into more academic research and civil society campaigns.
Find the different working groups here.
Find more on the methodology of the conference here.
Program Conference
Download conference schedule: | Download conference program: |
Friday, July 12 2019:
Public Day on Degrowth of Aviation and on a Just Mobility and Tourism
The conference starts on Friday at 4pm in Can Battló.
Friday’s events are open to the public and focus on cooperation with local movements in Barcelona against mass tourism. The problems of mass tourism in hot spots like Barcelona are closely interconnected with the demands for reducing flights.
On Friday afternoon, several workshops will be offered. Find the workshops here: https://stay-grounded.org/workshops-conference/
In the evening, we will hold the opening panel discussion, with keynote speaker Yayo Herrero (anthropologist and ecofeminist activist), as well as Gabriela Vega Telez (indigenous Mexican activist, online keynote). The panel will include representatives from Stay Grounded, the Degrowth research community and local movements in Barcelona. The goal is to highlight where the different struggles and approaches link with each other, and identify potential common fields of political action.
Saturday, July 13 2019:
Concrete Measures to Reduce Aviation (only open to registered participants)
On Saturday, the conference program starts at 9 am with two keynote talks on: the concept of degrowth (Filka Sekulova, ICTA); and the barriers to tackling aviation growth (Professor Stefan Gössling whose work focuses on tourism, transport and climate science).
Saturday’s main focus will be intensive working group sessions, with scientists and activists from all over the world discussing strategies to degrow the aviation sector. Find here a more detailed description of the methododology used.
In the afternoon, the outcomes of the working groups will be compared and discussed.
Sunday, July 14 2019:
Getting active
On Sunday morning, we will take the message from the conference onto the streets. There will be a creative action in Barcelona, more information will follow at the conference.
After the action, a last conference session will follow to discuss about how to proceed with the outcomes of the conference, looking at:
- How can the outcomes be communicated and implemented broadly?
- What sort of campaigns could be constructive in order to achieve degrowth of aviation?
- How can we cooperate and work together in the future?
Later on in the afternoon there will be an internal meeting for the members of the Stay Grounded Network.
Methodology of the Conference
Our methodology is quite different from typical academic conferences. Papers need not be submitted. The conference includes keynote speeches and public panel discussions, but its main feature is working groups chaired by experts from civil society and academia. Each working group will have ample time for in-depth discussion on a specific approach for degrowing aviation. This methodology is partially influenced by the Nyéléni-Conferences on Food Sovereignty.
The parallel working groups will be on the following strategies or instruments:
- Kerosene tax, ticket tax and VAT
- Frequent flyer levy, progressive tax on flights and individual flying quotas
- Limits on domestic flights, short haul flights, and flights per city, airport, and low-cost airlines
- Institutional changes of travel policies (universities, ministries, NGOs, etc.)
- Moratoria on and bans of new airport infrastructure and airports being scaled down and dismantled (e.g. regional airports)
- Fostering alternatives (e.g. night trains and buses in Europe, and ships using renewable gears)
- Caps on tourism (e.g. in cities)
At the core of the working group discussions will be questions like:
- What are socially just and feasible instruments and strategies to reduce aviation?
- Can degrowth of aviation be organized in a top-down or bottom-up way – or how must
this be interlinked? - Should we rather choose to demand taxes or limits?
Each working group will focus on a specific instrument or strategy, whilst (in discussing its advantages, disadvantages and feasibility) keeping in mind the topical approaches the other groups are deliberating. When the working groups are done, a plenary session will compare the outcomes. The goal of the plenary is to reach a conclusion on which strategies our movement should pursue and which instruments we should demand, toward reaching our goal of degrowing aviation.
To promote in-depth discussions, sign-ups for each working group will be made in advance, and participants of each group will be sent a briefing paper ahead of time. This will describe the state of the art of a group’s topic, pose central questions, and provide some literature. Experts participating in the working groups will have an opportunity to contribute to the briefing papers.
On Sunday we, as the Stay Grounded network, will discuss how to proceed on those outcomes and conclusions. How can Stay Grounded and its member organisations implement them in our campaigning?
Conclusions reached in the conference will be spread widely through an online summary and video clips. The outcomes will also contribute to a report on „Degrowth of Aviation“ we are planning.