What does the future of air travel look like? Will the effects of the pandemic on flying result in a more expensive world of air travel? Will flight-shaming take on an even greater dimension in the years to come? Or is the next step for air travel something that no one could expect in 2020?
Based on a new report from Earther, there’s one very alarming piece of news about the future of air travel: it could be more harmful to the environment. Jocelyn Timperley has the news, and it’s alarming for anyone with concerns over climate change. Timperly has following this story for a while, and reported on the actions of the International Civil Aviation Organization, an agency of the United Nations, earlier this year as well.
Timperly’s earlier report offered a sense of what was stake:
In December, UN climate talks broke down after countries failed yet again to agree on global carbon market rules. A decision on which offsets would be allowed to be traded was one of the major tension points. Now, the aviation industry could scramble efforts completely and wreck the climate in the process if it agrees to accept some of the most watered down credits as part of its offset program.
As Timperly writes in the current article, the present slowdown in air travel had had a serious impact on the UN’s regulations:
Air travel emissions were initially going to be regulated based on 2019 and 2020 totals, but the change takes 2020 out of the equation owing to the sharp pandemic-driven dip in air travel.
What that comes down to, according to the International Council on Clean Transportation, is between 50 and 200 million tons of emissions not being offset. That’s an alarming number on a host of levels.
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