The 42nd Session of the ICAO Assembly has come and gone with no progress on aviation emissions mitigation policy, just 26 pages of Resolution blah blah blah. The UN agency responsible for securing reductions in aviation emissions has failed. I asked aviation expert Chris Lyle to assess ICAO’s performance, and he replied: “Still no intermediate targets towards the ‘aspirational goal’ of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.”
Chris concludes: “The time has come to leave ICAO to its own devices … with States taking their own direct action, individually or through ‘coalitions of the more concerned’ – as provided for by the UNFCCC and its Paris Agreement.”
If only. The problem is that greenhouse gas emissions are a tragedy of the commons issue. In June 2024, António Guterres, Secretary General of the United Nations, described the fossil-fuel companies as the “godfathers of climate chaos” and warned that we face “climate crunch time”. Guterres went on to say that “like the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs, we’re having an outsized impact. In the case of climate, we are not the dinosaurs – we are the meteor. We are not only in danger – we are the danger.”
This is a tragedy of the commons issue because it benefits us to continue with business as usual, leaving it to others to reduce emissions. In contrast, we continue to pollute and profit. Only collective action, through effective regulation, can address the tragedies of the commons, and greenhouse gas emissions are a global tragedy requiring global regulation. This is at a time when the UN is increasingly powerless.
I call on advertising & PR companies to stop acting as enablers to planetary destruction by working for the fossil fuel industry.
— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) June 6, 2024
Stop taking on new fossil fuel clients & set out plans to drop your existing ones.
They are poisoning our planet & they are toxic for your brand. pic.twitter.com/IWZiZubMOd
I asked Chris for his advice about what we can do as individuals to reduce our emissions.
- Stay closer to home
- Use alternative, lower-emission forms of transport where available (and by all means take advantage of electric and hybrid-electric aircraft becoming available at short-haul)
- Choose lower emissions flight options (indicated by such providers as Google Flights and Travalyst, as well as ICAO).
But most effectively:
- Fly less frequently (and compensate by staying longer if that works for you).
Chris cautions against carbon offsetting.
“There are numerous providers of carbon offsets – airlines as well as third parties – for flights in particular, with some covering the whole of your holiday. But the quality of offset units is heterogeneous and far from guaranteed, and studies have shown that the majority simply do not work. However, there are some which are effective, notably those scrutinised and accepted by ICAO for its global offsetting scheme (see below), So, choose your offset provider very carefully and bear in mind that eventually everyone, not just air travellers, has to reduce emissions, and this is why offsetting is not a workable strategy to reach planetary net -zero.”
