Frequently Asked Questions about Aviation and Climate Justice

Stopping the climate crisis is the greatest challenge humanity has ever faced.

To ensure a safe and secure future for everyone on the planet, we must keep global warming as low as possible and avoid dangerous tipping points. This requires huge and urgent efforts. We need to stop burning fossil fuels and change the system. But right now, we are flying towards climate collapse.

Aviation is the most climate-harming mode of transport. The aviation industry often claims that aviation is only responsible for 2 % of global warming. In fact, aviation’s CO₂ emissions alone accounted for 2,9 % of all human-caused carbon emissions worldwide in 2018 (including CO₂ emissions from the production and distribution of jet fuel).

But aviation is actually responsible for much more than that: In 2018, air traffic accounted for around 6% of all human-caused global heating. In European countries, home to many frequent flyers, the share is even bigger. This is because aircraft also produce condensation trails and NOx, that lead to induced cloudiness and NOx derivatives. Those increase the total climate impact to 3 times the effect of the emitted CO₂ alone.

Although there are ways of reducing non-CO₂ impacts, such as avoiding humid areas where condensation trails could form or using fuels with a low aromatic content, these are not yet ready for implementation and their effectiveness is uncertain. The most immediate and effective way of reducing all the climatic impacts of aviation is therefore to reduce traffic.

To date, aviation has already contributed 3.5% of all human-caused global heating. This is higher than some entire countries’ (India, Canada) or even continents’ (Africa, South America) contributions.

To make matters worse, the pollution from aviation is accelerating. Since 1980, global aviation emissions have doubled. Between 2013 and 2019 emissions from passenger aircraft increased by 33%.

After a short pause during the first months of the pandemic, with planes grounded around the world, growth is set to return to the industry once more.

In 2023, global airline passenger traffic bounced back to 94% of 2019 levels, according to annual data from IATA Flights departing and arriving in the EU are projected to increase by 62% in 2050 compared to 2019.

If aviation returns to pre-COVID rates of growth, air traffic alone would contribute a massive 0.1˚C to global heating by 2050 or a 6% share of the remaining 0.3 °C to not exceed  1.5 °C of global warming. This is immense, especially when considering that this impact is caused by the very small portion of humanity that flies, and for an activity that only takes place occasionally and with less necessity than e.g. heating a home every day in winter.

This is why it is so important to campaign against aviation growth now – it would be much harder to degrow the sector again than to limit its growth in the first place.

 

 

Flying is one of the most climate-polluting activities. It is impossible to live a 1.5-degree lifestyle and fly.

We have a global carbon budget and need to stay within it to avoid going over the 1.5 *C limit by 2050. Let’s say we did the fair thing and assigned each person on earth an equal share of this budget. What would a sustainable footprint – including CO₂ emissions caused by ALL human activities, like eating, heating, mobility etc. – be?

Emissions from one return flight, e.g. from London to New York are five times the average sustainable footprint each person needs to have by 2050 to stay within the 1.5°C limit. Even a short-haul flight (e.g. London-Rome) takes up a disproportionate share of emissions and is entirely unnecessary, especially within Europe with good rail infrastructure.

Deciding not to fly has a huge impact on your CO₂ budget, more so than most other sustainable choices. By skipping the London-NY flight, you can save 4 times more climate heating emissions than by eating vegan and 17 times more than by recycling for a whole year.

The most vulnerable people have an annual footprint far lower than one long-distance flight: for example the average footprint of a person living in India accounts for only a bit more than half of the emissions caused by the flight from London to NY.

If every person in the world, almost eight billion people, were to fly from London to New York and back once a year, the CO₂ budget for staying below 1.5 degrees of global heating (about 320 Gt) would be exhausted within 34 years just from flying. This doesn’t even consider the additional non-CO₂ impacts of flying, which triple the CO₂ effects. This shows: If we want to protect our climate, flying can’t be normalised on a global scale as it is now for a small part of the world’s population.

 

The good news: There are climate-friendly alternatives to flying. Right now, the possibility of taking a train depends on how good the rail infrastructure is and the distances that need to be covered. But especially within Europe, it is easy to replace flights with trains. Doing so makes a huge difference. In the graphic, you see data from Austria (as of 2024), where the railway is powered by a high percentage of renewables, which is what we should be striving for. A train journey emits a staggering 29 (compared to a long haul flight > 4000 km) to 45 (compared to a flight from 1000-4000 km) times less than a flight.

 

 

 

“The jet-setting habits of Bill Gates and Paris Hilton mean that they produce an astonishing 10,000 times more carbon emissions from flying than the average person”, according to a recent scientific study.

Who flies, who doesn’t – and who cannot?

While to many Western Europeans, it might seem normal to fly, this has only been the case for the past few decades and is still not the norm globally. Only a small minority of the world’s population flies: 2-4% of the world’s population flew internationally in 2018 and 80% have never flown at all. This means that 1% of the world’s population is responsible for 50% of all aviation emissions. 90% of aviation emissions were generated in high-income or upper-middle-income countries.

As we showed above , the most vulnerable people have an annual footprint far lower than one long-distance flight and such a flight by far exceeds the average annual sustainable footprint per person that would keep temperature rise below 1.5°C. Air traffic is the most unequal form of transport.

 

In fact, if everyone flew like the richest Europeans (e.g. the wealthiest 10%), it would blowour carbon budget: Aviation alone would emit 23 Gt CO₂ per year. That is two-thirds of thebudget.

 

 

 

But it is not only your lifestyle or financial resources that determine how you travel: A lot of people aren’t even allowed to fly to other countries because of restrictive migration policies. Which passport you have determines how many countries you can travel to without a visa.

We also need to have a debate about our reasons for flying. Is a monthly flight for a long weekend to a Tuscan villa as important as a flight for someone visiting family living on another continent every two years?

A few frequent fliers heat the planet – at the expense of others: local ecosystems, future generations, residents exposed to noise and particle pollution from planes, and those in the Global South who are already bearing the brunt of global heating. We need to address the injustice of flying by pushing for political measures like a frequent flying levy.

If you want to know more about the injustice of flying, check out our Climate Justice and Aviation Factsheet:

Download the factsheet.

Version in black and white for printing.

 

 

 

It’s not only about the climate. When air traffic grows, this also has lots of other consequences on the ground.

Hundreds of new airports or airport expansions are planned to fuel the skyrocketing growth of the aviation industry. As of 2017, 550 new airports or runways were planned or being built around the world, as well as runway expansions, new terminals etc, totalling more than 1200 infrastructure projects.These new airports not only determine future growth but also often come along with severe social and ecological damage.

Most of them involve new land acquisition, the destruction of ecosystems, displacement of people, local pollution and health issues. Noise and air pollution are a major issue for residents living near airports. More and more airports, especially in the Global South, are becoming an ‘Aerotropolis’, or Airport City, surrounded by commercial and industrial development, hotels, shopping malls, logistic centres, roads, or connected to special economic zones. Those projects are often related to human rights violations.

Airports represent the main infrastructure for the globalised capitalist economy, needed for the production and trade of goods, business travel, tourism, as well as the deportation of unwanted ‘travellers’. Effective resistance against airport projects can prevent cementing an emissions-intensive, destructive form of mobility for decades into the future.

The Map of Airport-related Injustice and Resistance (see picture) brings together case studies documenting a diversity of injustices related to airport projects across the world. It was developed in collaboration with the Environmental Justice Atlas. The research for the EJ Atlas identified 80 cases of airport conflicts and more than 300 cases of airport projects where there is evidence of conflict that merit further investigation. For more information or to contribute with information about a local airport struggle, please contact mapping[at]stay-grounded[dot]org

See more extensive information on airport expansions here.

 

 

 

“Flying isn’t a problem if you pay a bit more to compensate for the emissions.” That’s the message airlines tell customers. Many organisations trying to implement more sustainable travel policies opt for offsetting. And it’s not only them: the only global agreement covering aviation’s CO₂ emissions, called CORSIA, relies heavily on offsetting. So, what’s behind these offsets?

What are offsets?

When buying offsets, companies or individuals pay other sectors or companies specialised in offsetting projects to reduce emissions, rather than reducing their own. Offsetting projects are mostly located in countries in the Global South. Many of them are hydroelectric projects, claiming to prevent the production of energy from fossil fuels. As well as this, forest conservation projects, operators of tree plantations, or organizations that distribute climate-friendly cooking stoves to women in rural parts can sell offset credits.

What is the problem with offsets?

Offsets don’t reduce emissions:

The whole idea of offsetting is fundamentally flawed. Carbon offsetting does not reduce emissions. Once climate change mitigating projects are sold as offsets, they don’t reduce emissions anymore, since the reduction is neutralized by the offset emissions. We need emission reductions through mitigation projects in addition to a reduction of aviation.
Offsetting, therefore, distracts from achieving global climate goals and the urgent need to reduce aviation and justifies further growth in air traffic.

Alongside this general problem, many offset projects are fraudulent or do not meet quality standards and therefore don‘t lead to real emission reductions. Tree planting and forest protection projects, the most popular categories, have no guarantee of permanence and cannot be scaled up globally due to the lack of available land. Emission reductions must occur additionally, meaning that they would not have occurred without the offset. In practice, this is often not the case, for example, because a hydropower plant would have been built anyway.

An older study of Öko-Institut (2016) showed that many projects miscalculated their savings: Only 2% of the UN’s offsetting projects had a high probability of resulting in additional emissions reductions (see graph).

One recent example is that research by “The Guardian“, “Time” and “SourceMaterial” based on three different studies of US company Verra, the largest certifier in the free carbon market, which offers certificates for forest protection in Latin America and Africa. The research showed that 90% of the certificates were worthless. The reason: many of the protected areas (where the act of protection is being sold as offset) are hardly threatened by deforestation. And in the few cases where the projects had an impact on deforestation, the effect on the climate was much smaller than Verra claims. The conclusion: Verra overestimated the threat to forests by an average of 400%, in some cases even by 950%.

Offsets often lead to ecological and human rights issues:
Since it’s cheaper to offset in the Global South, this is where most projects are located. They often lead to local conflicts or land grabbing. This is especially the case with land or forest-based projects like REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation). Often, small-holders and indigenous people are restricted from using the forest in their ancestral way to store the predicted amount of carbon in the trees. See also our research and blog article on the reality of carbon offsets and how they are used by the aviation industry.

Offsets allow a wealthy minority to pollute:
They clear the conscience of those who fly regularly while taking away vital resources from the majority, who do not fly.

Offsetting is also the main part of CORSIA the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation – a weak and non-binding agreement ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization). You find more details on this in the factsheet and in the policy module

To sum up: Offsets are a license to pollute. They legitimize business as usual, don’t work and deepen global inequality.

Read more: 

• Stay Grounded fact sheet on carbon offsets.
• Report by Stay Grounded (2017): The Illusion of Green Flying
• Transport & Environment Article (2020): Airline Offsetting is a Distraction
• Report by the Climate Justice Alliance (2017): Carbon Pricing. A Critical Perspective for Community Resistance
• Study by the Global Forest Coalition (2021): Arauco’s Valdivia biomass power station: carbon emissions and conflicts with Indigenous communities in Chile

 

 

 

 

Faced with growing critique and the need to defend their climate-damaging growth plans after the COVID crisis, the aviation industry stepped up its promotion of “green flying”. In greenwashing campaigns, they announce their intention to make aviation “net zero” in 2050. Technological efficiency, fossil fuel substitutes (so-called “sustainable aviation fuels”) and offsetting play a big part in these plans. But they never address the issue of air traffic growth and the proposed solutions…are far from tackling the problem of aviation’s climate impact.

The aviation industry has already lost several cases as a result of falsely claiming to be “green”. One recent example took place in March 2024, when a Dutch court ruled that the airline KLM has misled customers with vague environmental claims and painted “an overly rosy picture” of its sustainable aviation fuel. This was followed shortly after by a ruling against the airline Eurowings, which was prohibited from advertising flights as “CO₂ neutral” through carbon offsetting. In April 2024, the EU Commission started an action against 20 airlines for misleading consumer practices, including the use of the term “sustainable aviation fuels” as their sustainability is questionable and in most cases not possible to prove.

In our Fact Sheet Series on Greenwashing, we debunk common myths and misconceptions.

Energy efficiency: Too little 
By using better technology in new aircraft, efficiency gains of around 1.3% per year seem possible. However, these gains are by far outweighed by aviation growth. They can even lead to cheaper ticket prices, encouraging even more people to fly. Given that we expect the industry to grow annually in revenue passenger km by at least 4,3% (estimation based on numbers by Boeing and Airbus), savings from efficiency gains barely scratch the surface.
For more information see our Fact Sheet on Efficiency Improvements

Biofuels: A Problematic Alternative
The industry plans to replace part of their fossil kerosene with biofuels. Biofuel scale-up has been promised for more than a decade but this has not materialised.  In 2023, biofuel production was 600 million litres, representing 0.2% of global jet fuel use. Despite this very small amount, the industry projects that in 2050, the industry projects that in 2050, the share of biofuels can be 416 times (!) higher than today (250 billion litres, ATAG 2021).

Even though this projection is not very realistic, the consequences of any substantial increase could be disastrous. The industry claims it will only use biofuels from waste, but biofuels made from crops have not been ruled out in most parts of the world. The latter are proven to cause very serious environmental and social harm such as biodiversity loss, rising food prices and water scarcity.

Moreover, these “alternatives” even cause more greenhouse gas emissions than the fossil fuels they replace: For example palm oil, which is the most viable option, actually releases at least three times more greenhouse gas emissions than fossil fuels, according to a study by the European Commission (see graph).

On the other hand, biomass for waste-based fuels is available only in limited quantity and could be used more efficiently by other sectors. In some cases, the rising demand from aviation for animal fats for example leads to rising profits for the slaughterhouse industry or used  oil exports from Asian countries to the EU mean that they are locally replaced by problematic palm oil. There have also been several cases of fraud, labelling crop-based biofuels as waste-based.

Finally, biofuels would only partially reduce non-CO₂ emissions, which account for a big share of aviation’s climate impact.

For more information see our Fact Sheet on Biofuels and our case study on an agrofuel refinery in Paraguay, as an glaring example of unsustainable agrofuel production.

Electric Airplane: Too Small and Too Short Range 
Electric aircraft likely to be certified this decade will be very small and serve only very short flights. Batteries are too heavy to replace most jet fuel and combustion engines. Given the average efficiency of a motor and thermal engine, 1kg of fuel equals 25-30 kg of batteries (see graph). Short flights can in many cases be easily replaced by much more energy-efficient ground transport.
For more information see our Fact Sheet on Electric Flight.

 

Hydrogen: Too Late and Not Zero
Hydrogen will not be viable for medium and long-haul flights before 2050. Until then, only the regional and short-haul market could be converted, a large part of which can be substituted by road or rail. Currently, most hydrogen is not produced with renewable, but fossil energy, and its production is often connected to neocolonial practices, building hydrogen production sites in African countries, and exporting the hydrogen to Europe, where most of the hydrogen is used and most of the profits are made with this new technology.
For more information, see our Fact Sheet on Hydrogen flight.

E-Fuels: A Dangerous Hope
Synthetic fuels made from electricity (Power to Liquid) are technically feasible, but there are almost no facilities to produce them yet. Several decades of heavy investment would be needed to scale up production. Converting electricity to fuel is an energy-intensive process. The problem is: we are a long way from even producing enough renewables for grounded transport, manufacturing, agricultural production, or heating. If all planes were to fly with e-fuels today (in 2019), this would consume about two and a half times the renewable electricity currently available globally (see graph). Also, most of the non-CO₂ climate effects of flying would remain – and these are about two times the CO₂ emissions today.
For more information see our Fact Sheet on E-Fuels.

Net Zero
Reaching “net zero” targets is currently the central goal almost all climate strategies strive for  – within industry or government. For its part, the aviation sector has committed to reaching net zero CO₂ emissions by 2050. Net zero CO₂ emissions are achieved when any remaining anthropogenic CO₂ emissions are balanced globally by anthropogenic CO₂ removals (IPCC). This means that some “hard-to-abate” emissions are still allowed, provided that equivalent quantities of CO₂ are removed from the atmosphere by carbon capture technologies.

But Net Zero by 2050 will be irrelevant if aviation’s fair share of the global carbon budget for 1.5 °C is exceeded long before 2050. All that matters are the cumulative emissions in the atmosphere. Also, the technology for carbon removal is still unproven and resource-intensive and there is the moral issue of how much of the limited potential of CO₂ removal should be appropriated by the aviation sector. Finally, non-CO₂ effects are not included in net zero calculations but are far too high to be ignored.
Net zero promises diminish the sense of urgency, disguises inaction and allows polluting industries like aviation to evade responsibility.
For more information, see our fact sheet on Net Zero and on Negative Emission Technolgies.

Offsetting emissions: shifting the problem instead of tackling it
Another solution presented by the aviation industry is offsetting: compensating emissions by buying offset credits. The idea of carbon offsetting is fundamentally flawed, since it does not reduce emissions, is often ineffective or fraudulent, unfair, and postpones needed climate action and can therefore even increase the risk of climate chaos.
For more information, see the section on offsetting and our fact sheet on carbon offsets.

 

 

 

 

Compared to other sectors, aviation emissions are particularly poorly regulated. The aviation industry enjoys a special status, which is not only reflected in huge tax privileges, but it is also visible in the lack of emissions regulation.

The lack of regulation of the aviation sector is often explained by it’s historical importance for national security. Sales of military equipment account for 20% of the turnover of the aircraft manufacturer Airbus and a full 50% of Boeing’s turnover. The two corporations dominate international aircraft construction and planes built by them are responsible for as much as 92% of air traffic emissions.

Paris Agreement
Many countries justify their refusal to regulate their aviation sector by pointing out that the reduction targets of the UN climate agreement refer to the emissions released within the borders of a country, which would exclude aviation. This argument is inconsistent: after all, many of a country’s products are exported and their emissions are still allocated to the country of production. The tanked kerosene in a country could easily be measured and considered. The limited regulation is one reason for flights being so cheap in comparison to other modes of transport .

In the Paris Agreement, as in its predecessor, the Kyoto Protocol, only domestic aviation is subject to country-specific actions and falls under the scope of the Paris Agreement’s nationally determined contributions (NDCs) structure. International aviation, accounting for about 65% of civil aviation emissions, is not covered.

CORSIA
Instead, the United Nations agency ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organisation) is responsible for regulating the emissions of international aviation in the framework of CORSIA (Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation).

CORSIA relies on offsetting the growth of international aviation emissions by reducing or avoiding emissions from others elsewhere or removing carbon from the atmosphere. Aircraft operators must purchase carbon credits to offset (not to reduce!) CO₂ emissions. As described here , offsetting does not reduce emissions. An assessment conducted by the European Commission (2020) shows that none of the carbon reduction projects and offsetting programmes approved under CORSIA meet all required sustainability criteria. E.g., they lack provisions to avoid double-counting, where emissions savings are counted by both the airline and the country hosting the offsetting programme. Furthermore, the costs of these carbon credits are far too low – the impact on the cost of a Paris-New York ticket would probably not exceed €1.70 in 2030.

Airlines can also reduce offsetting requirements by using fuel substitutes (so-called “SAF”) or lower-carbon aviation fuels, but this won’t solve the problem either (see here  why). Furthermore, the criteria CORSIA has put forward for these fuel substitutes are very questionable. For example, within the CORSIA scheme fuels with savings as low as 10% are allowed.

As if that was not bad enough, CORSIA has several other problems:

• First, the participation of airlines in CORSIA is still voluntary, it only becomes mandatory from 2027 on. Even in the mandatory phase, ICAO does not have the legal capacity to ensure full compliance with the measure’s obligation.
• Second, CORSIA only aims to offset CO₂ emissions over a certain baseline – from 2024 on, this baseline is 85% of 2019 emissions, the historical peak of aviation emissions. Below this threshold of emissions, airlines are free to pollute as they wish. This means only the growth in emissions is addressed, leaving the largest bulk of aviation emissions unaccounted for. This is in complete contrast to the fact, that, to avoid exceeding the 1.5°C global heating threshold, all emissions must be reduced by 55% by 2030, not just the growth of emissions since 2019.
• Third, the non-CO₂ effects of aviation are not accounted for, meaning that at least two thirds of the climate impact are  ignored.

This all means that only a small part of emissions will be offset by 2035, when the scheme ends. The bulk will neither be abated nor offset. Without drastically reducing its own emissions, the aviation sector’s carbon budget will be fully spent by 2030. Even when it becomes mandatory in 2027, CORSIA will, non-CO₂ effects included, only address 5% of the total climate impact of aviation!

The very existence of CORSIA could potentially impede stronger legal international aviation regulations and therefore is “worse than nothing”.

EU Emissions Trading System
Flights within Europe are covered by the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS). The idea is  to achieve emission reduction by trading emissions allowances (emission rights), which airlines have to acquire equivalent to the amount of CO₂ they emitted in the preceding year. There is a maximum cap on CO₂ emissions that can be emitted by restricting the number of allowances available. This shall steer emission reductions to the sectors where they can be implemented at the lowest cost.

The ETS has, so far, not led to any real aviation emission reductions (estimations range between reductions from 0-1,5% per year). Aviation emissions have grown beyond the defined cap since 2013. This is because there are many ways to circumvent real emissions reductions in this system.

• First, the ETS for aviation only covers flights where both take-off and landing are within the EU, leaving the just less than 60% of flights from or to the EU unaccounted for.
• Second, the system issues nearly half of these allowances to airlines for free (T&E 2023, p. 23 f.). The good news is that free allowances are finally coming to an end by 31 December 2025: airlines will have to pay for all their intra-EEA CO₂ emissions covered by the EU ETS as of 2026. These two exceptions lowered the overall price per ton of emitted CO₂ considerably.
• Third, non-CO₂effects are currently still ignored by the EU ETS, even though they will be at least monitored, and from 2028, measures will be proposed by the European Commission to reduce them.

The EU will set aside 20 million free allowances for airlines that use so called “SAF” (sustainable aviation fuels), which are, as you can read here, quite problematic.

On the EU level, there is also the ReFuelEU Aviation initiative, which is part of the “Fit for 55″ package, which aims to reduce GHG emissions in the EU by 55% by 2030 (compared with the level of 1990). ReFuelEU stipulates that, from 2025, all flights departing from an EU airport will be obliged to use a gradually increasing share of so-called “SAF”; in 2050 the share is supposed to be 70%. As we explained here, this plan is not only very unlikely to be realised, but it will also not lead to real emission reductions or will have serious “side effects”.

Read more:

• Stay Grounded (2023): Fact Sheet on Carbon Offsets.
• T&E (2023a): Price of Flying.
• T&E (2023b): Aviation Tax Gap.
• T&E (2022): UN body ICAO hails empty goal and cheap offsetting scheme to ‘green’ aviation
• T&E (2021a): The EU’s assessment of the Corsia airline CO₂ deal
• T&E (2019): Why ICAO and Corsia cannot deliver on climate
• Heinrich Böll Foundation (2018): The Illusion of green flying
• Transport & Environment (2016): ICSA: The Paris Agreement and Implications for Reducing Aviation Emissions
• Larsson et al. (2019): International and national climate policies for aviation
• Stay Grounded (2017): The Illusion of Green Flying

 

 

 

 

€11.50 to fly from Palma to Mallorca?! Flying has never been cheaper. Some plane tickets cost less than the train ticket to the next city. Ho is that possible?  Flying is not a cheap mode of transport, it is made cheap by subsidies.And in the end, someone always pays.

Tax exemptions for the aviation industry

On the one hand, the lack of regulation (as explained here ) is one important reason for these cheap prices. On the other hand, the aviation industry has various tax privileges which favour it above other forms of transport. Costs of air travel are 60% lower today than they were in 1970. Everyone – including those who don’t fly – pays  for a web of subsidies, tax exemptions and public investments so that the most polluting mode of transport remains cheap.

Flying is virtually tax-free in almost all countries, unlike other forms of transport. While car fuel or heating oil is taxed, aviation kerosene is not. Kerosene taxes, if they exist at all, are only collected in a few countries at a very low level compared to the taxation of gasoline and diesel (see graph).

The data in the graph (related to 2021) covers 71 countries, which together account for approximately 80% of global GHG emissions and energy use. The data indicated is the sum of the cost of allowances in emissions trading systems, carbon taxes and fuel excise taxes, minus fossil fuel subsidies that decrease pre-tax fossil fuel prices.

Unlike essential products like food and medicine, flight tickets are nearly always exempt from value added tax (VAT). Worldwide, VAT is never applied on international flights (one small exception is India, but only if the ticket is bought in India). Domestic flights carry no, or reduced, VAT. Ticket taxes exist in many countries, including a number of EU states, but they are still too low to have any impact on aviation emissions.

These tax exemptions mean that EU Governments lost out on € 34 billion in taxes in 2022 alone.

On top of that, aircraft manufacturers benefit from state subsidies, which leads to cheaper planes. According to the WTO (2018), plane manufacturers Boeing and Airbus have been given billions of unfairly subsidized by

Exploitation of the crew
While the aviation industry is making ever greater profits, the pressure on its employees is mounting. Working conditions, quality and safety are worsening, and stress and burnout are on the rise. Qualified staff are increasingly being replaced by inexperienced, cheaper part-time workers. Especially in low-cost carriers, the model goes at the expense of employees .

Now the largest European airline Ryanair has therefore faced protests by trade unions. The company shops around for the weakest contracts in the EU and outsources labour through agencies and bogus self-employment schemes. Ryanair also uses the strategy of aggressive union busting and hostility to the rights of workers to organise, speak up and seek representation free from victimisation and reprisal. After a big campaign, the struggle against Ryanair was partially successful.

Read more: 

• T&E (2023): Aviation Tax Gap.
• Stay Grounded (2019): Eliminating Tax Exemptions
• Article by Transport & Environment (2019): A cheap airline ticket doesn’t fall from the sky
• T&E (2011): Towards VAT on air, ferry and cruise tickets
• CE Delft (2023): National Sustainability Policy for the Aviation Sector
• T&E (2019): Leaked study shows aviation in Europe undertaxed
• OECD (2022): Pricing Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Turning Climate Targets into Climate Action. Graph 2.7.

 

 

 

 

There can’t be infinite growth on a finite planet. Instead of greenwashing aviation growth, it’s time to  reduce air traffic. We need trains, not planes. Let’s travel as if there was a tomorrow and foster alternatives. And let’s stop showering the aviation industry with money from our taxes.

There are numerous ways to tackle aviation. Attention needs to be paid to just measures: It’s not fair to only raise prices for plane tickets, allowing only wealthy people to fly. How to reduce flying in a just way was the topic of a Stay Grounded conference held in July 2019 in Barcelona. The results can be read in the report “Degrowth of Aviation”.

There is no single measure that will tackle all the problems, so a package of different measures is needed, for example:

• Taxes on aviation: VAT, Kerosene, ticket tax: Pollution taxes, like a carbon tax, are necessary and long overdue. And because we all indirectly subsidise cheap flights and frivolous frequent flying by the rich, taxes on jet fuel and airline tickets would be a socially just measure. However, the tax system must also directly target the status of flying as a luxury activity.
• Frequent flying levy and air miles levy: Frequent flyers can be charged a progressive levy, instead of being subsidised at the taxpayers’ expense as they currently are. Another step is ending the numerous frequent flyer programmes that encourage unnecessary flying.
• Caps or bans on flights: But without setting absolute limits across the board, changing the price of flights alone is not enough to reduce them sufficiently nor cut pollution; the rich can always buy their way out of responsibility. Limits are a normal part of everyday life that we accept for our collective safety – speed limits on roads, alcohol limits for drivers,etc. Along these lines, the most effective way to reduce air traffic is to directly cap the number of flights. E.g. ending short-haul routes, where alternative transport could easily be used or built, or limiting the number of departures per day on specific routes.                      Certain flights should be generally banned. E.g. short-haul flights, unhealthy night flights and private jet flights. There is no justification for allowing a few rich individuals to pollute the atmosphere we all share, at the cost of our collective future.
• No new airport infrastructure
• Promote alternatives to flying: As described above, train journeys emit only a fraction of CO₂ per passenger km than a flight.  Also, bus rides are much more energy-efficient than flights. Insufficient funding and artificially cheapened air transport have resulted in a neglect of public transport infrastructure. In poorer, rural areas and especially in the Global South, even basic transport systems are lacking. We need smoother booking systems and fair prices, and the development or better use of public transport infrastructures. For Europe, our member Back on Track developed political demands to promote night trains. Another alternative to flights is online meetings, especially as a substitute for business travel. Virtual meetings can  be more inclusive than physical ones, allowing people with time constraints, caring responsibilities, financial limitations or those in remote locations to join the event, too.
• Ban the aviation industry’s lobbying: There is massive lobbying for the aviation industry’s interests, e.g. on the European level. A study found that Europe’s biggest airlines and the International Air Transport Association (IATA), have been lobbying decision-makers to weaken the environmental ambition of the EU’s climate plans for aviation.
• Change organisations’ travel policies: Business trips account for a huge proportion of flights and aviation emissions. At the same time, they are often easily replaced by virtual meetings or train travel. There are many different ways to reduce organisations’ carbon footprints and to initiate changes in travel policies.
• Behavioural change: Changing one’s travel behaviour is an important step in fighting the climate crisis. By telling exciting stories about “grounded” travel experiences, you can inspire your family and friends to do the same. If we all build political pressure, we can change the system so that grounded travel becomes accessible for all.
• Support a “just transition”: With looming climate breakdown, automation, digitalisation, and potential climate-induced pandemics, we need to be realistic: aviation and tourism will change – and they will do so either by design or by disaster. See more information on this issue here.
• Realistic accounting of aviation’s climate impact: Aviation’s real climate impact is far more than just CO₂. We need to get political institutions to finally acknowledge the real climate impact of aviation.
• Limiting air travel advertising: The advertising industry plays an active role in driving demand for aviation. Just as we ended tobacco advertising when we realised the harm caused by smoking, many municipal governments are now taking action to ban high-carbon advertising. There are many creative ways to address the issue of airline advertising and to build public pressure.
• Ban state funding/subsidies for aviation
• Divestment from the aviation industry

 

 

 

Flying, while often depicted as a carefree and convenient mode of transport, is detrimental to human health. While this is especially true for those flying frequently like cabin crew, pilots and frequent business travellers, people who do not fly also bear the consequences. Aircraft noise, emissions and related health issues fall disproportionately on low-income communities and airport workers.

Aircraft noise can lead to wide-ranging health issues, affecting residents in the vicinity of airports, especially during the night. Curfews exist at some airports and should be expanded.

The burning of aircraft fuel releases pollutants that cause thousands of premature deaths. A major problem is ultrafine particles, which penetrate deep into the lungs and even enter the bloodstream. Good measuring and strict air regulations for areas surrounding airports must be implemented.

Reducing the number of flights and stopping airport expansion are the best solutions to counter both health issues and climate breakdown. Residents, health organisations, the climate movement and workers can build powerful coalitions to achieve a fair reduction of aviation, and a healthier future for all.

Find out more about this topic in our report “Aviation is a Health Issue”.

 

 

 

Military aviation emits significant quantities of emissions during production and operation. Owing to the scarcity of independent, public studies on military fuel consumption, it is hard to get exact figures. It is estimated that military aviation accounts for 8% to 15% of this total, with military expenditures on the rise.

Military emissions have evaded review by the critical United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC) review for decades and continue to be exempt from international climate obligations in practice. Although it can be argued that military aviation should fall under Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC), the reluctance shown by countries to report fuel use in these sectors means that military aviation emissions are effectively left out.

The impact of military aviation however goes much beyond its climate impact, with the devastating effects of wars on people. Accounting for its emissions would be an important step. However, it is still far from the wish to reduce or abandon military aviation, weapons and war to fight the climate crisis and build a peaceful world.

Read more:
Article by Stay Grounded: A Tradition of Camouflage
Study by World Beyond War: Demilitarization for Deep Decarbonization