Climate Change News
Below are news items on climate change – many with relevance to aviation
EU urged to cut emissions from aviation faster – and address the aromatics problem
Ciarán Cuffe, a Green MEP who is shadow rapporteur for the ReFuelEU Aviation file in the European Parliament’s transport committee, has called for the EU’s "clean" aviation fuels law to be amended to include non-CO2 effects. This includes the release of soot and harmful gases, including sulphur and nitrogen oxide, as well as water vapour, from jet engines. The EU’s proposed green aviation law overlooks the true climate cost of flying, with the non-CO2 effects of air travel producing 2-4 times the impact of CO2 emissions. He says it is not credible to delay by another decade and rely solely on voluntary industry efforts. This hasn’t worked up until now, and it won’t work in the future. Some of the non-CO2 impacts are due to aromatics in the fuel (compounds like propyl benzene, tetralin and p-xylene). So there are demands to reduce the amount of these, and sulphur content, in jet fuel. However these aromatics are important in current jet engine design, as they help swell seals and improve flow. If the industry goes for more novel fuels in future, these do not contain aromatics. So either aromatics will have to be added to the fuels, to protect the engines - or engines will have to be adapted.
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How middlemen carbon brokers take a cut from money meant to help offset CO2 emissions
Many airlines like to encourage their passengers to buy carbon offsets, so they can hope the impact of the carbon their flight puts into the atmosphere is somehow reduced. There are many arguments against the uses of offsets, and reasons why they are ineffective - what is needed is preventing the CO2 being emitted today, not hopes of it being removed in several years. But now joint research by Greenpeace's Unearthed, and others, has found that much of the money that is paid for a carbon offset - in the hope it will go to some project that is attempting to reduce carbon - in practice is ending up in the hands of brokers and middlemen. The carbon offset market is booming, with many new schemes - and money to be made by those working in finance, who themselves do nothing to reduce carbon emissions. There is a serious lack of regulation and transparency in the carbon markets, and that needs to change. The research found cases where brokers bought carbon credits from forestry projects in poorer countries, and sold them on to consumers and companies, including airlines and oil firms, at much higher prices - making a huge profit.
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Government needs ‘coherent position’ and policy on aviation carbon emissions’ before giving CAA more responsibility on environmental issues
The Transport Committee has told the government that it must review the powers granted to the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to facilitate the introduction of more environmental constraints. In its new report, "UK aviation: reform for take-off" the Transport Committee says: “The Government must review how the Civil Aviation Authority’s powers can be reformed to enable the regulator to enforce environmental mandates that the Government may introduce for the aviation sector.” The problem is that the government does not have much policy on the environmental impacts, especially carbon emissions and noise, for aviation. The AEF says that, as an arm of the central government, the CAA is hamstrung by whichever regulations are put in place – or not – by Downing Street. If there are no standards or policies from government, there is little for the CAA to regulate. This is the case for noise, since the government closed down the ICCAN and handed its responsibilities to the DfT. We need the Government to actually introduce some meaningful environmental standards for aviation before the CAA can be brought in to enforce them.
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World’s biggest carbon removal machine ‘freezes over’ in Iceland – illustrating the myth of future CCS
Global emissions of CO2 are around 36 billion metric tonnes from the burning of fossil fuels. Taking into account emissions from land use change, it is well over 40 billion. To prevent further climate change, very little more greenhouse gases should be added to the atmosphere, beyond what the natural carbon sinks (oceans, forests, vegetation, soils etc) can remove annually. So that means humanity should be removing many billions of tonnes of CO2, into permanent storage, each year. That is in addition to increasing the amount stored temporarily in trees and vegetation. So far the only machines doing carbon capture and storage (CCS) can only remove tiny quantities of CO2. Now the Orca machine in Iceland has had problems due to unusually cold weather ... When working well, it might remove 4,000 tonnes per year (at huge cost). There would thus need to be 1 million such machines to remove 4 billion tonnes per year. That really is not going to happen. Though there are many dozen CCS machines already working, most send the CO2 into oil reserves, for "enhanced oil recovery" (surely not the spirit of removing the CO2 in the first place - but profitable). Otherwise, who will pay to store the CO2, if it cannot be sold, for a profit?
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Alex Chapman: Five ways the government’s irresponsible plans for aviation are putting us all at risk
In an excellent analysis, Alex Chapman (from the New Economics Foundation, NEF) looks at the reality of the UK government's hopes of reducing aviation carbon emissions, while letting the sector continue to grow for decades. The DfT will allow an increase in the UK’s air capacity by 70%, or 200 million passengers above 2018 levels, by 2050. There is no way this can be done, without increasing CO2 emissions, as there are no proven technologies for low carbon flight available at scale, and quickly. The DfT's plans are irresponsible and dangerous, and represent the epitome of the ‘burn now and cross our fingers something will save us later’ philosophy which has led our climate to the brink. A key problem is how the UK government ignores the highly significant non-CO2 impacts of aviation. Electric flight, or hydrogen powered flight, will not be available on any scale for decades (if ever) so the sector is depending on "sustainable aviation fuels" (SAF) and doing dodgy carbon life-cycle accounting for them. It also ignores the various environmental impacts, other than just carbon, created by using plant material in SAF. Then all that is left is hoping against hope that offsets might work (no) or that carbon can be captured from the air and stored. That will not happen on the scale needed.
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Unwise to depend on future carbon removal, while continuing to emit CO2
Schemes to suck up carbon emissions and permanently remove it from the atmosphere will be essential, as humanity is unable and unwilling to cut its carbon emissions. The techniques to be used to remove carbon are CCS (carbon capture and storage), Beccs (bioenergy with carbon capture and storage - with huge potential negative impact on land use and biodiversity) and Daccs (Direct Air Capture with Carbon Capture Storage). But they will have the effect of allowing the continuation of "business as usual" and preventing the drastic carbon reductions that are needed, now and the the near future. There is not going to be the capacity, let alone the ability or willingness to pay for it, to permanently store the billions of CO2 necessary. Yet sectors like aviation are depending on these unlikely, unproven technologies, in order to continue to emit carbon for years, with almost no reduction in emissions. Regrettably the inclusion of future carbon removal technologies in the IPCC’s models is encouraging policymakers to treat carbon removal technology as a fait accompli and delay essential emissions reductions policies.
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T&E finds Europe’s largest airlines claim net zero future whilst lobbying to weaken EU’s climate laws
New analysis by Transport & Environment (T&E) finds that the 4 legacy airlines - Air France, Lufthansa, Iberia and Aer Lingus [both part of IAG] - are working to water down EU’s climate plans for aviation, letting up to 72% of EU aviation emissions off the hook. This is despite publicly committing to net zero emissions by 2050. Europe’s biggest airlines have been lobbying decision makers to weaken the environmental ambition of the EU’s climate plans for aviation, such as its sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) proposal (ReFuelEU). There are major discrepancies between the airlines’ public commitments and their tenacious lobbying efforts. Negative climate lobbying efforts are led by the IATA as well as the airlines. Analysis by T&E shows clear signs that IATA and IAG’s positions have filtered through a number of amendments submitted by decision makers to the European Parliament. The airlines are making crowd-pleasing pledges of net-zero emissions, but in the background, they send IAG and IATA to do their dirty work: lobby to weaken the EU’s climate package so they can continue to pollute for free.”
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France: domestic short-haul flights to be banned where train takes under 2.5 hours
The French government has become the first large economy to ban short-haul flights where a train or bus alternative of two and a half hours or less exists. This was voted on in 2021 and came into effect in April 2022. The intention is to reduce the country’s aviation CO2 emissions and might have the effect of eliminating 12% of French domestic flights, such as those between Paris to cities such as Bordeaux, Nantes or Lyon. In 2021, the French government bailed out Air France with €7 billion after suffering Covid losses, and it made the condition that the airline become more environmental conscious. The government asked other airlines to do the same, as the absence of Air France flights might offer low-cost carriers an opportunity to move in and offer the same flights. And the French government does not want Air France to be undercut, on international routes from Paris, by other airlines if too many domestic links are removed. Eurocontrol found flights shorter than 311 miles made up 31% of European flights in 2020 yet contributed just over 4% of the EU's total aviation emissions. And EU flights over 2,485 miles, for which alternative train travel is less feasible, made up 6% of all flights, but produced 52% of emissions. So the French move will have little CO2 impact.
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Airport expansion and UK climate policy: a mess that needs urgent attention
The IPCC report of 28th February was clear that action has to be taken, fast, to reduce carbon emissions, if there is to be a "liveable future" for all. Carbon emissions should halve by 2030, to give the world a chance of not increasing the temperature more than 1.5C above pre-industrial. But with the eyes of the world on the war in Ukraine, it did no get the reporting and the discussion it deserved. Airports in the UK (and elsewhere) continue to plan, not only for more flights and passengers, but for more infrastructure to enable yet more expansion. The UK is currently not on track to meet its 4th and 5th carbon budgets, going up to 2032. The government's climate advisors, the Climate Change Committee, say “there is no room for airport expansions”. Local authorities say the carbon emissions from the expansion are not their problem but for national government to decide. But the UK still has no policy on aviation carbon, assessed across all airports. National planning policy guidance for local councils about climate change and aviation is out of date and contradictory, with airports claiming the law encourages them to "make best use of" existing infrastructure. Proper joined up policy is needed quickly. See full piece by Nick Hodgkinson
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There were an average of 500 “ghost flight” international departures per month from UK between October and December 2021
In February, Alex Sobel MP obtained information from the DfT and CAA, to a parliamentary question, on "ghost flights." There had been almost 15,000 “ghost flights” that took off from the 32 UK airports between March 2020 and September 2021. That only includes international departures, not the arrivals or any domestic flights. There were an average of 760 ghost flights a month over the period. Now more recent data shows that, despite more air travel and fewer Covid restrictions, almost 500 “ghost flights” a month departed from the UK airports between October and December 2021. A ghost flight is one with fewer than 10% of passenger load capacity. The government relaxed the "use it or lose it" slot use rule during the pandemic, so airlines no longer had to use 80% of their slots. It was then increased to 50% use and from 27th March 2022 it reverted to 70% use. Though some low capacity flights can be explained, the vast majority cannot be justified, in terms of carbon emissions. The government needs to review its policy on ghost flights, especially the aviation industry claims it is aiming to be "net zero" for carbon.