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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.
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“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.
Well that was stupid wasn’t it
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.
No matter how fucked you are you can always get that much more 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!
Right. Also the speed of transition matters a lot.
Take any devastating effect that climate change might bring. Regions becoming uninhabitable, millions migrating, thousands of houses destroyed, crops failing, species going extinct.
For any of these effects, it helps a great deal if they can be delayed by years or hopefully decades. It gives everything more time to adapt. Like 10 million people migrating in 1 year puts a hell lot more stress on everybody involved (including the receiving countries) compared to 10 million migrating in 10 years.
Or your country might be blessed to deal with wildfires and floods one after the other, instead of both occuring simultaneously.
More time is worth more effort.
We’re already mega fucked.
That is my point though: No matter how fucked we are, it could always get worse. There is no “we reached the limit anyway, so no need to worry about anything anymore”
There’s still close to 50% chance we’re not fucked. We need to grasp at that straw, especially since that hope is what can keep it from getting worse, much worse. Missing our goal is pretty much a foregone conclusion, but we’re not yet known to be locked into one of the catastrophic tipping points. Let’s avoid those
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.
With this logic there’s no sector that would have an impact significant enough that we should worry about it.
I disagree. Electricity generation and industrial processes are emitting many times more greenhouse gases than air travel. If you eliminated all emissions from electricity generation tomorrow it would make a massive difference, far exceeding the 2% of air traffic. Looking at an EPA source electricity generation is 25%, industry is 23%, and transportation less air transport is 26%.
https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions
transportation less air transport is 26%
Then the trucking industry will say “But just our sector isn’t that bad, why not concentrate on ships?” and then the shipping industry will say “But just our sector isn’t as bad as electricity production!” and so on.
What you’re doing is exactly the same thing most people are doing to justify not making any effort “I won’t make a difference by myself, why should I do anything?”
I just don’t see people taking vacations or seeing relatives across the country as being the problem at this point in time. I think the limited resources we have to pursue environmental changes could be spent significantly better elsewhere.
If you came up with a revolutionary technology that saved an astounding 50% of the air transport emissions, you’ve eliminated 1% of total global emissions.
If you come up with a much more mundane technology that saves only 10% of electricity generation emissions, you’ve eliminated >2% of total global emission, more than twice the impact.
Limited resources would be much more effectively applied starting with the largest polluters.
I don’t think kneecapping air travel, pissing off many normal people, for little environmental benefit, is the way to get people to start seriously caring about emissions. It’s just going to fuel more reactionary bullshit and people completely missing the point, IMO.
As a side note, ships are way more efficient than trucking. Despite the scary numbers they put out, they also haul an insane amount of cargo.
But personal transportation and power are two places we Are making some progress, while emissions from flight keep growing. Current trends will make it a much bigger slice of the pie in a few years, but reducing emissions will take years of effort. It’s critical to start now
Electric trains ftw
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.
If externalities were actually enforced on the air sector, it would be completely replaced with high speed rail except for travel across the ocean, and even then shipping would become more prominent. The problem of giving free passes is you are artificially strangling the alternatives. It becomes much more cost effective to build high speed electric rail when your only option for jet fuel is biodiesel or paying the real costs of climate impact.
Right, it’s a lot better to give somebody a better alternative first if you want the public on board. Build up public transit, build up regional and high speed rail and leave planes for long distances that are unfortunately suited for trains and cars (e.g. international, cross-continental, etc.)
It is not taking away vacations or delicious fruits, there are many lower impact alternatives for vacations and food, you just have to get out of the habits and trends, there are great things to discovers everywhere.
Also, I don’t advocate for prohibition but rather for reduction proportional to footprint. Your dream is to take the plane to go to another continent? Do it, but maybe once every 5 years instead of every year, and switch to train and discovery of your region with hiking for the other years.for a minuscule impact on climate.
who defines what is miniscule here? what if an oil baron deems 20% to be miniscule? do we all go swimming in their blackened beaches?
how is 2% miniscule? and who says that emission reduction exercises have to stop at 2%?
it’s sometime very easy to minimise the seriousness of something with the clever use of generic statements. there are enough spin doctors already trying to pull the wool over our eyes–we don’t need to help them by also shooting ourselves in the foot.
If we don’t start taking away things that people enjoy then in a hundred years it won’t be an issue anymore 👍
That attitude is how you make no progress on climate
I start in a similar place but go the other direction. Airline travel is an important personal luxury, and crucial to global business or politics. While in the ideal it may be unnecessary, you’re not going to get people to give it up willingly, and they’d argue there’s no other option for such travel. So, what can we do?
The industry is great at adopting efficient technology but it can’t even keep up with growth in demand, much less reduce carbon emissions. So what else can we do?
- We need to drive/incent/require widespread usage of Synfuel/biofuel. At least then you’re just moving carbon currently active in the carbon cycle, rather than adding yet more carbon that’s been sequestered for hundreds of millions of years.
- Trains. We need to spend a lot more on trains. In this case we need to give people a more climate friendly option for travelling between cities up to 500 miles or so apart. We need trains to replace every short flight, so the carbon emissions from flying are at least only spent when there’s no other option. I read that France has started with bans on flights between a few cities with good rail service. Here in the US, we’re way behind with high speed rail but Acela is good enough to replace flying between a few cities, like Boston to NYC
I agree, having alternatives to air transportation is key. Trains are second. Just banning air transportation or imposing some fees will just make people angry and, I believe, hamper progress towards reducing the amount of CO2 we’re putting into the atmosphere.
Almost every emissions issue is a small part of the whole
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.
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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.
It’s not always a choice. Only for the privileged.
Standard denier response. We don’t need to do anything cos magic future tech will save us
“New tech”
Old tech, actually. From the 60s. It’s called high speed rail.
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!
I get how hard it is to cut down on airline emissions. But the strict requirements on budget has significantly improved that number over the past few decades. Aircraft engines today are much less polluting than they were 30 or 50 years ago. Perhaps the goals shouldn’t be dropped so easily.
What scares me about this is how lightly climate change is taken. “Yeah, I don’t think we can do it. So we’re going to just stop trying”. Do you even realize what sort of trouble the humanity and this planet is in? Especially for a country dominated by its coastline?
Profit this quarter matters more to these people than how many die in the next century.
They’d rather make a dollar today than save a life tomorrow.
If only they valued future lives at a dollar.
Billions are going to die and people are selling out for a few hundred bucks a year.
Is it hard? I thought we were set on an international biofuel standard and it is mostly a matter of being willing to spend more to scale up.
I’ve been assuming all climate goals are a joke. It’s a way of saying “look we care!” without actually having to do anything
We’re going to grow up our carbon emissions this year and the next one too, have no actual plans after that, but don’t need to worry, by 2050 We’re going to cut emissions by half.
Industry self-regulation, especially with regard to climate, is a joke. We either start fixing the system, or we’ll burn.
They don’t have to be performative, nor do we have to accept that without protest
NZ is a hard ask for this. They are an Archipelago and far from the rest of the world, of course their airlines can’t live up to this. Maybe a small landlocked country with access to trains like Switzerland in Europe could do it, I would not have expected that of NZ.
The first of many, I presume. Any decision with a long term goal of >10y is pretty much null and void since it can be altered at any time.
Yep. Any promised future targets are just marketing hype.
Then: “Eco-friendly is really trending now, we’ll base our image around that”
Now: “It’s more profitable to drop the eco targets, so were dropping them”
It needs long term planning to make any change. So the key difference is between populist rhetoric and action, even if that action doesn’t bare fruit immediately.
Right, and what I’m saying is there’s basically zero incentive for corporations to ever take action, because SAYING you will be doing it has all the image, PR and revenue benefits, but without needing to even ACTUALLY do it. And then later you just quietly forget about it, like this.
The only way companies will ever take action is if governments legally mandate them to (and even then maybe not!)
When did airlines care about climate change? Its like a mining company saying “We care lots about the forest we need to deforest to mine the ore.” Who even thought that they cared? I would’ve hoped that they at least used biodiesel at some point in the process.
How much better is biofuel than fossil CO2-wise, if you need to cut down forests for arable land?
A very good question.
It is a very common misconception that trees and plants just always absorb CO2. The Carbon © in CO2 does not just disappear when plants produce Oxygen (O2). Plants use it as material to grow themselves and their fruits. Once they are fully grown, they don’t really absorb any more. So if you burn a tree in a fireplace and grow a new tree in its place, the new tree will eventually re-capture all the CO2 burning the wood released as it grows. This works even better with fast growing plants used for biofuel. The CO2 released by burning biofuel is re-captured when you grow more plants to make more biofuel.
So chopping down a forest to create fields is bad in the short term since it releases and does not recapture the CO2 from the trees, but is sustainable in the long term since you “recycle” the same Carbon.
Some quick searching gave me around 100 tons of carbon for 1 ha of forest and around 5 m^3 of biofuel per year for the same area of arable land. I.e. one liter of biofuel initially releases 20 kg of carbon or around 60 kg of CO2. So biofuel starts to be better for the CO2 levels after about 20 years?
Almost, yes. It should be close enough as an estimate.
If you want to be precise, one thing you want to be careful about is that not every fuel releases the same amount of energy per kg of CO2. So you should be comparing to the CO2 released by whatever is being replaced by the biofuel (most likely fossil fuel), not the biofuel itself.
Another consideration is how much CO2 is released by the production of the biofuel compared to what it is replacing. Since farming equipment, transportation etc. all could produce CO2.
Well that’s sad.
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If you have any questions or comments about me, you can make a post to LW Support lemmy community.BBC Left center 🤨, maybe to the US it is, but to the rest of the world it definitely doesn’t seem to be biased leftwards
They seem to have a general right bias because they consider the New York Times and the Washington Post to also be left-biased and that’s just preposterous. Though in fairness it looks far worse for Fox News.
