Air New Zealand has abandoned a 2030 goal to cut its carbon emissions, blaming difficulties securing more efficient planes and sustainable jet fuel.
The move makes it the first major carrier to back away from such a climate target.
The airline added it is working on a new short-term target and it remains committed to an industry-wide goal of achieving net zero emissions by 2050.
The aviation industry is estimated to produce around 2% of global carbon dioxide emissions, which airlines have been trying to reduce with measures including replacing older aircraft and using fuel from renewable sources.
“We’re not gonna reach it in time. Guess we’ll just die.”
Damn NZ what happened, you used to be cool.
They too suffered from increased anger from the right wing, so when Jacinda resigned, they elected a right-wing government.
There’s no path for a commercial air carrier to do this, nor is there any point as we’re all well and truly fucked.
That is the thing: Mitigating climate change does not have a boolean result (we mitigated it or not), it is a scale, without a relevant upper limit. So, if you think “fuck this, we can’t stay even within 3 degrees warming, so it doesn’t matter what we do from here” you are wrong. Even if that is the case, at least try to mitigate 4 degrees and so on. Basically there is a difference between “we are fucked”, “we are super-fucked”, “we are mega-fucked” and so on! Getting complacent is not an option here!
The only way we make air traffic sustainable is by only travelling by plane when absolutely necessary and by not ordering stuff to be delivered ASAP so it can be shipped by boat instead.
Four people in a Chevy Suburban with a V8 pollute less to travel the same distance than if they do it via the air. Air traffic pollution is very, very bad, especially since it’s released at altitude, and yet air traffic keeps increasing, especially for leisure.
And before someone comments about the ultra rich and their private planes, their emissions is basically nothing compared to the rest of air traffic.
Air traffic altogether is only 2% of global emissions. We could focus efforts to reduce emissions elsewhere without the negative effects on logistics and people traveling. Even if you completely eliminated all air traffic tomorrow it would be insignificant compared to other sources. Not that I think it’s a bad idea to reduce emissions from air traffic, but it’s going to highly impact people’s lives for barely a dent in emissions.
2.5% of emissions but 4% of global warming impact due to where the emissions happen. That’s 1/25th of the global warming.
I stand by my point; even if you eliminated all air traffic tomorrow it would barely make an impact. Efforts are best focused elsewhere that would have more of an impact on climate and less of a negative impact on people’s lives.
You can always detail something and say it’s only x percent. Every percent counts, and we have to start with the ones that are not vital. Planes for vacations or luxury mangoes are very far from being vital.
The way I see it, you’re taking away things people enjoy for a minuscule impact on climate. This will just piss people off for little benefit, and it’s not how you get people on board with the big changes we need to address the worsening climate. It’s like having to use shitty straws when industry is pumping gigatons of shit into the atmosphere. I believe the money pressure on airlines to use more efficient engines is actually doing a decent job at incentivizing efficiency in the air sector; it’s elsewhere that needs to be addressed harshly.
I believe the expectation is for that to change pretty rapidly.
Emissions from airlines is expected to continue growing and alternatives like biofuel/synfuel and expanded rail are too long term or not happening.
However the biggest emitters are being addressed. Scaling out renewable energy, ending coal, and scaling out EVs can significantly reduce the worst sources of carbon emissions (they’ll still be the worst but significantly less)
Then airlines become a contender and are no closer to a resolution
And before someone comments about the ultra rich and their private planes, their emissions is basically nothing compared to the rest of air traffic.
Yes but it’s a hugely disproportionate amount for one person, how do people not get this?!
Using the same logic, i shouldn’t do anything about climate change myself, because everything I can personally do is basically nothing.
I’m not saying it’s not ridiculous for a single person, but even if they all started to take regular flights the issue would be pretty much the same, air travel in general is problematic, it’s everyone’s responsibility in this case. You see people complaining about emissions but they have travelled to 30 countries so far or they order shit from Amazon twice a week instead of buying locally or they decided to study 3000km from their home “to experience something new” but they come back any chance they get.
I really hate excusing billionaires in their private jets, but you could argue they do not have the money to make a difference in this case.
Technology improves efficiency as time goes on but the biggest change under airline control is switching over to biofuel so at least the carbon emissions are currently active carbon rather than adding carbon that had been sequestered for hundreds of millions of years. So biofuel exists and I believe has been approved, perhaps even internationally, however not much is made and it’s expensive. Private jets can’t spend enough to change that. We need commitments from major airlines to spend enough to invent biofuel scaling way up, and we almost certainly need government and international pressure or encouragement.
Of course that avoids the argument whether private jets are an excess the greater we can afford. And that avoids the argument that the rest of us need investments in rail so we have an alternative
No matter the type of fuel, you’re taking carbon and releasing it at altitude, it’s much better for the environment to burn that fuel at ground level if that’s what you’re going to do with it.
I know it’s hard to accept but air traffic is just unsustainable as long as it’s done using fossil fuel.
For these goals to be reachable, I think it comes down new tech. I don’t think people are going to stop flying. For many it’s simply not an option, especially if you have family far away.
It’s a choice people are making, moving from one side of the US to the other to go to school or for work is a choice, it’s not normal in our current situation that we accept that and just think it’s ok that these people travel across a continent multiple times a year. Same for people traveling halfway across the world for vacations, in the current state of things that’s unacceptable. Humans have never had that much mobility in their history as they’ve had in the last 100 years, it doesn’t mean it’s a good thing for the world and it doesn’t mean it’s sustainable and should stay this way.
We need to stop relying on tech to come and save us, we have the power to do something right now.
2044: We cannot meet the 2050 climate target. There won’t be enough jet fuel. We can’t do much for the climate at this point anyway. So who wants to fly with us? We have air conditioned cabins. Live the cool life. Escape the heat!
It is not the airliner which is the problem, it is the government. Compare it with the tobaco and alcohol industry: You can’t expect them to protect the health of their customers and to reduce their profit voluntarily, If you want to reduce alcohol consumption, you just need to make the stuff more expensive with taxes etc. A bottle of spirit would cost the same as a bottle of cola if the government would not interfere, it is the task of the government to avoid this danger to society. The same with air travel: To make air travel less attractive is not the task of the airliner but a task of the government. At this moment, airliners are pampered, get tax free fuel, can expand at the cost of the neighborhood, etc. so what do you expect?
The air travel industry doesn’t care much about fuel consumption. They still descent with flaps and spoilers out, instead of trading off altitude for speed slowly. They fly with speeds of 400+kts, but just like with cars, going slower saves fuel. And as long as the airliners demand fast airplanes, manufacturers keep designing them, despite the higher fuel costs compared to a slower plane. Again, making fuel much more expensive could cause the industry to rethink their strategy. There is a tipping point where customers accept a longer flight time for a substantial reduce in costs.
They still descent with flaps and spoilers out, instead of trading off altitude for speed slowly. They fly with speeds of 400+kts, but just like with cars, going slower saves fuel.
I agree with you wholeheartedly that aviation fuel subsidies must end, and train travel should be prioritized above all else.
That said, it’s not true that going slower saves fuel, for multiple reasons.
- One is that the primary resistance planes encounter is air resistance, which is lowest in the highest parts of the atmosphere, because the air is thinner. But since planes use air pressure differences to stay up, thinner air means you have to go faster if you want to stay aloft.
- Even discounting that, going slower means a higher angle of attack for the plane, meaning the plane will pitch up more to maintain altitude. This actually increases drag, and that’s true for everything from airliners to small propeller planes. Point is, the speed where fuel consumption is minimal for a given distance is not going to be near the lower end of the scale, more likely you’ll find it in the upper third, above 400 knots for an airliner.
- The first point may be valid, but since going higher saves fuel, steep descents may actually also save fuel, as an idling engine will still consume a lot of fuel. In fact, I’d be willing to bet that going 400kts at altitude, then cutting the engines idle, and extending flaps and spoilers reduces flight time and thus fuel consumed compared to just cutting the engines and slowly descending. BTW you need flaps and spoilers to land, so it’s more of a when rather than an if you’ll open them.
- And finally, air pilots and airlines already optimise for fuel consumption, because that’s in their interest as well. Fueling an airliner is hella expensive even with the massive subsidies. It should be more expensive, we agree on that, but slowing down airliners is just going to make fuel consumption and emissions even worse.
All you say might be true for the current design of airplanes. But it is like saying, “this formula 1 race car is really more efficient on the race track than in urban traffic, hence driving cars faster is more efficient.”. I agree flying higher is more efficient. There is however no rule that you need to get to 400kts in order to be able to fly at FL350. It all depends on the design of the airplane. In general, for every form of transportation, road vehicles, boats, airplanes, going faster always means “spending progressively more fuel”. I built my own airplane. And sure enough, flying it at 160kts instead of 140kts costs more fuel, at any altitude. And, not insignificantly, my small propeller airplane has a lower fuel consumption per passenger per mile than the airliners do, despite the latter flying higher and faster… What is the reason of that? There was also the Concorde. It could fly even faster, and higher, but… it used way more fuel. But this also doesn’t mean that flying the Concorde close to its stall speed would be more efficient. There is no way to fly the Concorde at the same efficiency as a 737, at any speed or altitude, because it is designed to fly high and fast, and burn more fuel to make that possible.
So, I’m pretty sure, if we would not optimize the design of airplanes for a certain speed, but for the lowest fuel consumption, you might indeed end up with airplanes that fly slower (and maybe lower) than the designs we have now, and we could have airplanes that use less fuel per passenger per mile.
An airliner is not an F1 car though, that’s a jet fighter. All I’m saying is that I think if Ryanair could get a plane that would eat less fuel but take twice as long to make a trip, they would jump at it. The Concorde shows exactly that, while some airlines might want the prestige, mostly they just want to provide the cheapest service they can get away with.
And, not insignificantly, my small propeller airplane has a lower fuel consumption per passenger per mile than the airliners do, despite the latter flying higher and faster… What is the reason of that?
Are you carrying enough fuel while doing that to do a trans-Atlantic flight? Airliners do. Can you fly over the troposphere to avoid significant weather that, beyond having people throw up, would have planes divert and use a lot more fuel as well? Airliners can. There are other reasons, of course, but these are just off the top of my head. All that said, of course fuel efficiency is but one of the things airliners are optimized for, and there are other concerns, but speed is not really one of them for the sake of it.
A bottle of spirit would cost the same as a bottle of cola if the government would not interfere
Sorry, how do you figure? Cola is basically water, sugar, and flavorings/colorings. Mix it together, carbonate it, put it in a bottle, and ship it out. Super easy to scale up. Whiskey (for example) involves mashing grain, fermenting it to get alcohol, distilling that alcohol to get it more concentrated and less watery, aging it in a barrel for a number of years, and then bottling it and shipping it out. Each step involves big, specialized equipment (harder to scale up) and many involve losing product along the way. And yet, it’s because of government? Sure, there are higher taxes on alcohol and that contributes to the difference, but to blame it entirely on government is ridiculous.
Whiskey (for example) involves mashing grain, fermenting it to get alcohol, distilling that alcohol to get it more concentrated and less watery, aging it in a barrel for a number of years, and then bottling it and shipping it out.
If the government would not interfere, most companies would just label watered down cleaning alcohol as whiskey and sell you that. Point is that there are cost-increasing measures on alcoholic drink production from the govt beyond taxes.
I understand your point, but the original claim was that spirits and cola could be the same price. My argument was that spirits have a much more involved manufacturing process which raises the price. In my opinion, watered down cleaning alcohol has a different manufacturing process and wouldn’t count - whether government prohibits it or not. It’s a different product, made a different way, so of course it’s going to have a different cost.
Thinking of it another way, and trying to play devil’s advocate against myself to think this through, what if government said that cola needed to come with a side of premium caviar? It would raise the cost, and government would have caused it, but it would also be a different product. That doesn’t mean that if you got rid of government regulation, cola with a side of caviar would cost the same as cola without caviar, spirits, or diluted cleaning alcohol. It just means that the regulation alone wasn’t what made it expensive, because there are intrinsic manufacturing costs regardless.
I could give a long description about the process to make the sugar needed to make cola, and then describe whiskey as essentially just water and alcohol, and some flavors. Then there is that other kind of alcohol, methanol, for cleaning windows etc, usually sold in percentages over 80%. How much does that cost per liter? I stand my ground that spirits could be sold for about the same price as soda, if it would not be taxed with special exise, duty, tax, or whatever the special “alcohol tax” is called in your country. Which is exactly the reason that in practically every country alcoholic drinks are made artificially more expensive.
So it’s actually a lot more involved to make spirits when you don’t want to go blind over it, especially if you want it to taste good as well.
US taxes spirits at $13.50 per proof gallon at most (like income taxes, there are different margins). That means a gallon of 100 proof (50% alcohol by volume) alcohol spirits has a tax rate of $13.50. A 750ml bottle is .198 gallons, and .198*$13.50 is $2.67.
So… You sure about that?
