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| by Manfred Treber, GERMANWATCH |
At the beginning I want to state that the positive effects of aviation are numerous, e.g. we can intensify the economic cooperation, bring different cultures together or hold climate conferences to protect the atmosphere. This won’t be discussed today.
For GERMANWATCH sustainability is often the starting point for the work. Sustainability has the three pillars: the ecological, the economical and the social aspect. But these pillars are not equal. The ecology is prioritised because if the ecology is destroyed there is no life possible and thus no economic or social optimisation.
A.1 Starting point for the actual discussion on aviation is the Special Report "Aviation and the Global Atmosphere" of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which was finished in May 1999. They introduced a new notion: the Radiative Forcing Index (RFI). From the Special Report we learnt that the RFI of aviation is between 2 and 4. This means that the global warming effects of aviation emissions are 2 to 4 times higher than the one of the CO2 emissions of aviation alone. In other words:
Aviation emissions are especially unfriendly to the climate.
A.2 To translate this in the language of every day the following example may be instructive: If a passenger flies one hour in an average commercial airplane, this person causes as much greenhouse gas emissions as one average person in Bangla Desh in one year through all his/ her activities.
You can hardly do anything else legally which affects the climate more.
This was an ecological view from the micro scale.
B.1 Now an economic view.
The ideas of market economy do not work correctly in the aviation sector.
There are subsidies for the airlines, for the infrastructure, international flights don’t pay value added tax, there is no internalisation of external ecological effects nor from security challenges.
It is necessary to introduce more ideas of market economy in the aviation sector.
B.2 A problem for adequate action in the aviation sector is and will be the inertia of the technical material. From the beginning of the design of a new plane until the last service of this aircraft it takes 60 years. This means that we have to begin early to take measures to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions of aviation. We have to begin now!
C.1 Now turn to the macro level.
Strong growth is projected for aviation
globally. Until 2015 the emissions of the year 1995 will double. According
to recent OECD data with conservative assumptions, by the year 2010
greenhouse gas emissions of aviation will attain those of passenger cars
on a global scale, and exceed them thereafter (compare the figure below).
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| Figure 1: Comparison on a Global
Scale: Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Passenger Cars and Aviation
Source: OECD, 2000. Conservative Estimate: Calculated with an RFI of 2 for Aviation |
C.2 The effect of the growth of greenhouse gas emissions of aviation until the first commitment period is so high that this will compensate half of the emission reduction of the Kyoto Protocol stated in Kyoto in 1997 (minus 5 percent).
C.3 If the business as usual development will not change in the long term (e.g. in the next 50 to 70 years) aviation emissions alone will reach the order of magnitude what human beings can emit in total if they do not want to change the climate.
These are alarming signals. What happens?
We hear from ICAO that after three years of working on this they decided to continue to examine what can be done.
And the FCCC (COP and SBSTA) avoids to bring this in their agenda in a workable way.
If this proceeds, the aviation
industry changes its image from a modern, clean business sector to an old
one which needs subsidies and destroys the climate.
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