Climate Change News
Below are news items on climate change – many with relevance to aviation
Overall fuel efficiency of US airlines fails to improve on domestic routes during 2013, finds ICCT study
An annual performance study by the ICCT shows the fuel efficiency of US carriers on domestic routes failed to improve in 2013. ICCT found little correlation between airline efficiency and profitability, and is concerned that as fuel prices steady or even fall there will even less incentive to make fuel efficiency gains. Even less efficient carriers were also able to make high profits through using older, less fuel efficient aircraft. ICCT’s analysis shows the average annual fuel efficiency between 1990 and 2000 improved by 2.1%, improving to 2.8% between 2000 and 2010 and then fell back to 1.3% between 2010 and 2012. Load factors rose from 60% in 1990 to 82% in 2010, but have flattened out in recent years. The US aircraft fleet is ageing, with fewer new planes. The price of oil has fallen markedly in the past year, and may remain low for some time, due to US oil production. There is concern there will be less incentive, with cheaper fuel, to make energy savings. Or meet the IATA goal of 1.5% energy improvements annually to 2020.
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Letter from NGOs: “All 3 of the Airports Commission’s shortlisted options would increase CO2 emissions”
Any new runway would increase CO2 emissions and make the UK’s climate change commitments much more difficult to achieve. The Commission has assumed that emissions will be somehow constrained, but has remained silent on what policy measures would achieve this in practice. A new runway would necessitate some combination of new taxes, limits on regional airport growth, and additional burdens on other sectors to cut emissions beyond the very challenging reductions already required. The NGOs are calling on all parties to make manifesto commitments that they would not permit the building of a new runway that will violate climate targets, exacerbate noise or air pollution, or damage wildlife and the British countryside. Whoever leads the next government will need to judge the recommendations of the Airports Commission in this context before deciding whether to build a new runway anywhere in the South East. (From AEF, FoE, Greenpeace, RSPB, WWF)
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Airports Commission consultation launched – acknowledging it lacks the necessary information on carbon constraints
The Airports Commission has published its consultation about the 3 short -listed runway schemes (Heathrow north-west runway, Heathrow "Hub" and Gatwick). The Commission, rather than themselves assessing whether a runway could, or should, be built - adding to UK carbon emissions, leaves that part of policy to others. The CCC (The Committee on Climate Change) has advised that UK aviation emissions should not rise to over 37.5MtCO2 per year, from around 33MtCO2 now. The Commission has had trouble trying to incorporate a new runway at one airport, as well as growth at other UK airports, within the 37.5MtCO2 cap. All sorts of assumptions have to be made. At heart, the Commission has conceded that: "The Commission intends to carry out further work to complete a fuller economic assessment of the case where UK aviation emissions are constrained to the CCC planning assumption of 37.5MtCO2e for its final report in summer 2015." ie. They do not have the necessary information on whether a runway could be viable, with the necessary price of carbon in future.
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Caroline Lucas MP blog on the IPCC Report: A Tipping Point for Political Action
In her blog, Caroline says it is clearer than ever that we need to phase out fossil fuels, making a decisive switch to clean energy. We cannot afford to burn the vast majority of known fossil fuel reserves. The IPCC report warns of "severe, widespread, and irreversible" climate impacts if we do. The most important message is that the main barrier to action isn't lack of money or lack of technology. It's lack of political will. We need more than tinkering around the edges of business as usual. It's no longer good enough to have policies to cut carbon in one part of the economy but to ignore others. "It doesn't add up to say you want UK leadership on climate change and that you're proud of the Climate Change Act whilst backing airport expansion and the creation of a whole new fossil fuel industry in the form of fracking for shale gas." And "... the Infrastructure Bill needs radical amendment. At the moment, it promotes high carbon infrastructure such as new roads, and contains a provision to maximise UK oil and gas production." Leaders must act; time is not on our side.
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IPCC report says large cuts in CO2 emissions are vital, and need to be soon, to stop severe impacts of climate change
The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) has produced its Synthesis report, bringing together work from 3 earlier reports. It is unequivocal about the extent of the danger posed by climate change, and the imperative need to make huge cuts in global carbon emissions. The science is absolutely clear - politicians ignore it at their peril. Ignorance can no longer be an excuse for not taking action. The IPCC says climate change is set to inflict “severe, widespread, and irreversible impacts” on people and the natural world unless CO2 emissions are cut sharply and rapidly. They say climate disruptions will cause huge difficulties for humanity, including food shortages and violent conflicts. Inaction would be costly; the longer the delay, the higher the cost. Lord Stern said delaying cutting CO2 emissions would be "profoundly irrational”. Ed Davey said: “...we must act on climate change now." But he backs building a 2nd Gatwick runway. With the extent of carbon cuts it is essential to make, how can the inevitable rise in UK aviation carbon emissions, caused by an additional intensely used runway, possibly be justified?
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Study finds a carbon gap of 220 million tonnes in 2023 will require offsetting by the airline industry
A very readable, short, paper by ICF sets out the extent to which global aviation will not be able to make the carbon reductions it claims will be possible. ICF looked at the global commitment by the industry to make fuel efficiency gains of 1.5% annually to 2020, and then "carbon neutral growth" from 2020 onwards - despite annual growth in passengers of about 4-5% per year. ICF concludes that even with improvements in aircraft technology, airline efficiencies and operational improvements, together with the introduction of 6% biofuels, there will be a sizeable 23% carbon gap between commercial aviation forecasts and industry targets by 2023. Without that much biofuel (which ICF considers unlikely) the gap would be 27%. Without industry efficiencies and biofuels, global aviation would be emitting about 53% more carbon in 2023 than now. ICF believes carbon offsetting to be the most cost-effective way to close the carbon gap - but that only means aviation buying carbon credits from other sectors which are actually reducing their emissions, while aviation can then continue to increase theirs.
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Keith Taylor MEP: “We don’t need a new runway at Gatwick – or Heathrow, or Stansted or anywhere else for that matter”
Keith Taylor, the Green Party MEP, has set out clearly why no new runway is needed. The Airports Commission will shortly publish their consultation options, for runway plans at Heathrow and Gatwick. Keith says the extensive evidence against there being a need for a new south east runway is being ignored. The massive advertising and PR budgets by the airports are attempting to persuade that a new runway is vital is described as a con. While in theory the Commission was set up to establish if there was a need for a runway, in reality it has just been a process of making the decision where to build one more politically acceptable. It has not been an issue of "whether" as it should have been - but just "where." Keith comments: "... it seems the Commission’s sole purpose has become to choose where expansion will go despite the very strong existing evidence against all airport expansion." People in the UK already fly more than almost any other nation. Economic claims of the benefits of a new runway and claims about jobs created are also grossly exaggerated. The aviation industry is perpetrating a massive hoax, for their own purposes.
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EU agreement of 40% carbon cuts by 2030 condemned as unambitious and far below what is needed
The EU came to an agreement on 23rd October, to make an overall cut of 40% in carbon emissions, compared to their 1990 level, by 2030. Though proclaimed by governments etc as a huge achievement, in reality it is nothing of the sort. The UK regrettably lobbied to weaken the targets. The 40% target includes some credits from emissions trading with countries outside the EU, so the actual targets are only 27% for energy efficiency, and 27% for renewable energy. Friends of the Earth points out that the EU had already achieved a 20% cut in emissions by 2012, meaning that it is pretty much business-as-usual for the years till 2030, with such a lax target. Leading climate scientist Professor Kevin Anderson from the Tyndall Centre sent an open letter to David Cameron about the inadequacy of the EU targets. This letter explains why, for the chance of it being “likely” that we do not exceed the international community’s 2°C commitment, requires the EU to reduce the emissions from its energy system by 80% by 2030, with complete decarbonisation just a few years later. Not a mere 40% by 2030.
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Stansted airport claim “66% cut in net carbon footprint” this year – they are buying biomass-generated electricity from Drax
Stansted airport has produced its "Sustainability Report" for 2013. It announces the remarkable claim that: "Our net carbon footprint for 2013/14 was 9,940 tonnes of CO2 equivalent emissions – a reduction of 66% compared to 2012/13." It does not specify what a "net" carbon footprint is though. Unfortunately the format of the 2013 Sustainability Report and the format of earlier years makes comparison impossible. However, the claim of a 66% cut - written to imply a cut in the carbon footprint of the whole airport - is only referring to its use of electricity. The press release says: "... 66% reduction in the carbon footprint achieved by moving the airport onto MAG’s group contract for purchasing low carbon electricity, which is generated using only biomass such as wood and straw rather than coal." It turns out that MAG has a contract with Haven Energy, that is part of Drax, which is turning its generators from burning coal to burning biomass, in the form of wood pellets from forest in the southern USA, doing considerable environmental harm. While Drax claims its biomass electricity has 80% less CO2 than coal, some consider it to produce more, not less. That 66% claim is highly dubious ...
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Kevin Anderson blog on decisions of academics and climate community about personal travel
In a blog in June 2014, Professor Kevin Anderson writes about the need for people to consider their own behaviour in relation to flying. He is personally highly conscious of his own energy use. He looks in particular at academics and those in the climate change community, and their justification for the use of high carbon travel. These are some quotes: "Amongst academics, NGOs, green-business gurus and climate change policy makers, there is little collective sense of either the urgency of change needed or of our being complicit in the grim situation we now face." And on the desire to fly to save time to spend with our families: "When we’re dead and buried our children will likely still be here dealing with the legacy of our inaction today; do we discount their futures at such a rate as to always favour those family activities that we can join in with?" And "Surely if humankind is to respond to the unprecedented challenges posed by soaring emissions, we, as a community, should be a catalyst for change – behaving as if we believe in our own research, campaign objectives etc. – rather than simply acting as a bellwether of society’s complacency."