In the UK, airline flights account for 7 percent of that country’s CO2 emissions, but thanks to more and more cheap flights this will probably rise to 25 percent in the next couple of decades. Worldwide, flights make up about 2 percent of all emissions, and again the percentage is rising. The numbers are not good news for travelers who care about the environment. It’s downright annoying spending a year catching public transport to work to make the world a better place, only to discover that your short break to Hawaii emitted more CO2 than you could hope to make up in ten years of not driving.
For those who travel because they want to see the world’s beautiful places before they’re gone, the irony could blow a blood vessel—taking a plane to see the Great Barrier Reef, whose existence is threatened because people take so many planes …
So what can we do? For most of us staying home is not an option; there’s too much world to see, family and friends to visit, cultures to learn from, foods to taste and mountains to climb. And if it really is going we want to see it before it’s gone. One option is to hope the airlines can come up with a way to make flying more earth-friendly. Richard Branson, CEO of Virgin airlines, is on a mission to do just that. He’s proposed all kind of ideas—his work on using new technology to both reduce circling times and cut down the distance planes need to be towed before they take off is boring but immensely practical—but this last week one of them is off the drawing board and (almost) on the runway.
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