“EU Transport emissions are up 34% since 1990 and aviation emissions up 110%, a report by Transport & Environment (T&E) shows.

1990 is the base year against which emissions of greenhouse gases are reported in the Kyoto protocol and succeeding agreements. Annual data is compiled by the EEA (European Environment Agency) and submitted to the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) on the EU’s greenhouse gas emissions. However, the return usually leave out emissions from international shipping and aviation (so-called ‘bunkers’).

To complement the 2008 data, T&E have carried out an analysis which includes shipping and aviation figures. This clarifies the actual contribution of the transport sector to the EU’s CO2 emissions.

Findings include:

Between 1990 and 2008, transport emissions increased by 34% while emissions from other sectors decreased by 14%. [In 2008] Compared with 2007 transport emissions decreased by 1.6% and those of other sectors by 2.2%.

Consequently, the share of transport in total emissions rose further from 28 to 29%; in 1990 the share of transport was 21%;

Emissions from international aviation and shipping (both outside Kyoto) have risen by 110% and 56% respectively. Emissions from aviation were unchanged in 2008, those of shipping dropped by 2.1% compared with 2007;

In 2008 aviation and shipping accounted for 7.0% of total CO2 emissions, and 24% of transport emissions. In 1990, these figures were 3.8% and 18% respectively.

Without taking bunker emissions into account, the EU’s total CO2 emission compared to 1990 have decreased by 7.1%. However, if bunker fuel emissions are taken into account, the reduction is only about half that figure (3.9%).

These figures are the result of a decrease in non-transport emissions of 13.6%, and an increase of transport CO2 emissions by 33.7%.

Growth and share of international aviation and shipping

International bunkers play an important role in the increased share of the transport sector in overall emissions. Emissions from international aviation and shipping have been growing at higher rates than those of transport as a whole.

The following figures present the evolution of international aviation and shipping CO2 emissions since 1990.

Emissions from international aviation more than doubled between 1990 and 2008 (growth of 110%), with a stabilisation in 2008. The average annual emission growth since 1990 has been 4.2%.

Emissions from international maritime transport have increased by 56% since 1990, with a decrease of 2.1% in 2008 compared with 2007. Average annual emission growth since 1990 has been 2.5%.

The share of emissions from bunkers in the total continues to increase. In 2008 they grew from 6.9 to 7.0% of the total, and from 24.3 to 24.4% of EU transport CO2 emissions. In 1990, these figures were 3.8% and 18% respectively.”

So what can we do about it? Pledge and encourage others to do so is one way. And there are many campaigns and action groups, some listed on the links on this site. A recent post that caught my attention is Transition US attempt focused on the Environmental Impact Report EIR associated with airport expansion. They take a peak oil resilience stance and ask “how do you plan to complete this massive project without oil?”. I think that can be a powerful way to frame the debate.

CHEAP HOLIDAYS ABROAD!!!!! BOOK NOW, BEFORE THE FLOODS SUBSIDE*

Amazing opportunities! Washed away with excitement?

BBC reporter Orla Geurin recently pondered whether the Taliban will take advantage of the terrible ‘natural’ disaster in northern Pakistan (1600? body count on day 1, 4million affected, 1.5 million kids at risk of drowning, disease, hunger)

But WHY not join with the Taliban in grasping this opportunity. . . .

CHEAP HOLIDAYS ABROAD!!!!! BOOK NOW, BEFORE THE FLOODS SUBSIDE*

The cost of flights to Lahore have plummeted almost as fast as the rain! WOW, you could take that exotic holiday of your dreams after all.

Just think, while so so many people still plan the same old trips to Thailand or Australia (HOT TIP! they have their own massive disasters round the corner so I recommend waiting before you commit your hard earned cash*) you could be trumping them with a holiday with a real X-factor.

WASTE NOT WANT NOT: Remember, we all have to be more efficient in the face of climate change. That means taking personal responsibility for booking the cheapest holiday deals we can NOW before vital infrastructure gets washed away for good.

** OK it’s raining now in Pakistan but but the sun is also predicted to come out and stay out for months at a time. So why not stay for that longer break? Go on. You deserve it.

*this is independent financial advice and represents my own uninformed opinion that is NOT substantiated by any actual prices as I have not bothered to look. You could of course ignore my advice and instead DO THIS!

For more informed opinion I recommend re-reading Dr Pachauri’s comments about Pakistan and climate change from 2008. He warned that health of millions would be affected with diarrhoeal diseases associated with floods and drought becoming more prevalent.

“The fact that global warming was unequivocal and there is no scope for scientific questioning, Pakistan faces potential environmental catastrophe,” said Dr Pachauri, who has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (on behalf of the IPCC) along with former US vice-president Al Gore.

**No white babies, real or otherwise, were knowingly harmed in compiling this post.

PS. If you find this article offensive, thinking you should be left to do what we have come to consider as normal, no matter the impacts, then you’ll probably need to keep you eyes shut tighter and your fingers pushed deeper in your ears. WELCOME TO THE FUTURE!

. . . . . THE EARTH EXHALES

Thanks to Angela Raffle for sending this one to me. Made me laugh out load!

COME, FRIENDLY ash drifting over Krakow. We are not fit for travel now. We need a chance to forget how. Linger, cloud!

Come, ash and blow to smithereens. The plans of all those Daves and Bridgeens. For suntans and ouzo and shopping for jeans. The lower-middle crowd.

Mess up the plans of the backpackers too. Of Daniel and Emma, Of Nathan and Sue. The Thais have done nothing to merit this crew. Ground them at last.

Force those who have bought an apartment in Spain. To get there entirely by boat and by train. Perhaps then they’ll admit it was cash down the drain. Depreciating fast.

The couple who wanted to wed in the sun. Have time now to realise what they should have done. A service at home and a week in Dundrum. Love conquers all.

And the family who saved up for years just to go. On a Florida trip with their glum kids in tow. They can have a day out on the bus to Arklow. They’ll have a ball.

No more office bores with their snaps of Mauritius. No more tales of how all the food was delicious. No more stags from Prague scratching something suspicious. All dearly departed.

No more needless shuttling of management types. They can sort out their business by video-Skypes. And as for officials of various stripes. Don’t get me started.

Don’t tell me either of how we all gain. From averaging out the whole world by jet-plane. We go looking for difference and make it the same. Though prices may vary.

And is the economy really in peril? We import the planes and the aviation fuel. Then we export ourselves for an annual ritual. Is it necessary?

Is a package flight out and a package flight back. Your idea of exploring, adventure or craic? Are you Hemingway, Conrad or Jack Kerouac? You are not.

Instead, you are spam in a can in the air. Squeezed into a seat half the size of a chair. Counting the minutes until you get there. Unless your veins clot.

So make travel again the domain of the rich. Or the poor and romantic with feet that do itch. They can take their own yachts or else they can hitch. They’ll still arrive.

The rest of us have any number of picks. Rent a house on the beach or just out in the sticks. Pitch a tent, ride a bike, climb a hill, or a mix. We will survive.

Spend the weekend in Ireland to be patriotic. Take a ferry to Wales if you’re feeling exotic. Or just stay in bed and do something erotic. The choice is ours.

Real choice, to declare ourselves finally free. Of the paranoid cult of faux-security. With its scanners and shoes-off and biometry. Our way it bars.

To go forth bearing liquids, sharp objects and glass. Letting nobody tell us that we shall not pass. They can stick their full cavity search up their ass. We are not afraid.

And the light! Was it ever as sharp and as clear? Did the sun ever seem quite so bright or so near? Take a deep breath, oh cheap-flight mutineer. The Earth exhales.

WHAT’S EMITTING THE MOST CO2 PER DAY?



The CO2 saved is more than double that emitted from the Icelandic volcano

Can we shift to a lower energy, more energy efficient economy? Will we simply move from flying to taking high speed rail and electric cars? What will society look like and what will happen to the global economy?

Economist and author of “Why your world is about to get a whole lot smaller: Oil and the end of globalization” Jeff Rubin predicts flying will be as it was in the early 1970s.

I am putting aside flaws in the assumption that we have to grow the economy to keep financing  the global economy. A big ask maybe, but in reality that’s where politics and economics is and will be for a while I feel despite the efforts of many at a saner approach.

The Green New Deal in the UK, the USA and many other nations is heralded as the way to simultaneously make all the necessary substitutions, boosting economic activity, providing jobs and a green version of the life we all know. Nothing too scary about that.

But is it true? Can we subsitute are way out of the energy hole we are falling into. This is for me the big unanswered question at the heart of current economic and political thinking. I have enjoyed recent talks by economist and author Jeff Rubin asking these questions and suggesting some of the answers. Relocalisation is central to his thesis. . .

Here is a fuller exploration on this theme, including his prediction that flying will go back to the level seen in the 1970s. Rubin argues that without enforced trade tariffs for high emitting goods and services there is little chance of the developing world moving to a low emissions development model. He argues that the sooner these tariffs are in place the better. China and other economies will soon be far less dependent on consumption in the West for there own economic growth, as their domestic and regional demand are growing fast. A strong argument for rapid transfer to low and zero emissions regional economies, even if there is short term pain for old industries and our dependence on imports.

Rubin references the EU as a demonstration of the future for the US in terms of transport. But, if we are to have a significant chance of avoiding runaway climate change, this will not be nearly enough.

In conclusion Rubins predicts by 2010 oil over $200 pb. Economic growth is central still but based on re-regionalised economies. Peak oil means that peak globalisation happened in 2007. The world is about to get localised!

My dad is a wonderful and optimistic man, he believes in the ingenuity of man to technofix our greatest challenges such as climate change and energy scarcity. He often sends me articles like this in the Vacouver Sun.

A $1.3-billion technological upgrade to Canada’s air-traffic-control system is taking off in another way: It will bring cleaner skies.

I think he’s trying to cheer me up! I know he thinks I worry too much. So in the spirit of optimism I checked out the article talking about the thousands of tonnes CO2 that would be saved by the latest satellite GPS technology allowing more planes to cross Canada etc. whilst also saving on fuel costs and emissions. . .

My response to my dad:

interesting article. . . . . I would say, it’s only better to be more efficient IF it comes with lowering overall TOTAL emissions.

So far all the efficiencey savings (engine technology, wing design, traffic control, improved lighter materials etc.) in the aviation industry has, in reality, led to two things happening:

1. Delayed meaningful policy responses to control of the TOTAL emissions by this sector, the fastest growing sector in the world. Imagine the impact of the Chinese, Indians, Malaysians flying as much as Europeans Australians etc. Why would they restrict themselves if we refuse to?

2. Through a well studied economic feedback called ‘Khazzoom-Brookes postulate’, the extra profits captured by the aviation industry through efficiency gains allow it to expand it’s business. The result is that TOTAL emissions end up HIGHER.

The 2% figure used here for emissions is very out of date. They are more like 4-9% of the total CO2e warming. Currently estimates are for another doubling in emissions by 2030 (by 2007 they were double the 1990 level) this includes such efficiency savings as detailed in the article. Globally the per capita level of emissions for all human activities needs be 1 or 2 tonnes (that’s 1 return flight to Delhi or Vancouver).

So while I accept  that technological advancement can be part of a solution it can also make the problem worse in TOTAL. If we look at what scientists are saying actual reductions in the TOTAL emissions must begin straight away. . .

Professor Schellnhuber recently briefed U.S. officials from the Barack Obama administration, He had told them that the U.S. must reduce its emissions from its current 20 tonnes of carbon per person average to zero tonnes per person by 2020 to have an even chance of stabilising the climate around two degrees C.  . . . China’s emissions must peak by 2020 and then go to zero by 2035 based on the current science.

In the EU the typical emissions are around 11 tonnes per head right now.

The emissions from aviation industry must be subject to a stringent cap on total emissions, nothing less. Even though that means the aviation industry’s future is likely one of contraction.

I am starting to suspect Essentials co-op has been inflitrated, their food contaminated with some form of Monsanto derived super virus, a virus that splices in an emissions denial gene into otherwise highly aware human beings. I know it sounds crazy, but a good friend and tireless campaigner for social justice, Transition Towns and much more, pointed me to this Guardian article referring to research published by Dr Tim Riley at Loughborough University. He concluded :

“While some people are willing to fly less and others are willing to pay more to fly to offset emissions, they remain the minority. It is cost and not environmental consequences that deter people from flying more often.”

She is just off to India by the way . . .  I assume by bike and camel etc.

In my experience some of the most entrenched flyers are people who’s identity is otherwise largely based on doing the right thing. I can’t quite get my head round this one. . . . maybe it’s something subliminal on the Yoga relaxation CD (I’ll try playing one at double speed to see if I can hear the ads for Easyjet deals to Bombay)

FHS is an increasingly serious condition that is spreading faster than ever and if my Bohemian friends are anything to go by these otherwise low impact living heroes are suffering more than the rest of the population.

I was with another friend from London the other day who has decided the best response to our current destruction of planet earth etc. is to spread the idea of ‘blended living’ – one hand on the spade and one on the laptop. They then added that the winter months would be spent somewhere like India, getting spiritually re-charged (not sure if that was working with the poor to rebuild sustainable rural economy, or staying at a Sawdayesque retreat) and the 2 tonnes CO2 from the 1 trip (not including any uplift here) was offset by lower impact living at home.

I think this phenomenon should have a name, as it is so prevalent amongst my peers, I might call it flying hippy syndrome!

4 degrees here we come  . . . .

OK I am not really an advocate of lecturing so I am wondering if I forget about pointing all this stuff out and stop giving my friends a hard time. . . so I thought this might be better approach

ARE YOU DOING YOUR BIT FOR CLIMATE CHANGE, PEAK OIL? – GIVE ME A BREAK!

You say, “don’t even start, I am not going to live in a commune and eat lentils!”

I say “I am not asking you to make personal sacrifices.”

You say, “I fly and I drive and I like eating meat. It’s not a crime!”

Yes, and that’s totally normal, and making a martyr of yourself is not the point. I am not asking you to suddenly stop when every one else carries on.

What am I saying?

We act together and make the best out of what is a massive challenge for everyone. If it’s just you doing it, then there is little point.

It’s about deciding what type of future we want, given what we know about climate change, and energy security and it’s also about fairness. Only acting together can we create the fair system of rules and regulations where we share the benefits and responsibilities of the changes that are needed.

So in no uncertain terms, tell your MP, “I will if you will” , talk to your boss, your friends, your family. Together we’ll make happen whatever needs to happen to get us through in the best possible way.

If everyone acts together we can have a good life, better in many ways than we have now, and much better than the life we’ll have if we don’t.

Are we going to tell ourselves that it is our right to live however we want? Is it too hard to change? Or, are we going to accept that many of the things we now consider normal, like flying on holiday, business trips or even visiting family whenever we want, are destroying our future as a species and destroying what’s not ours to destroy. We don’t know how big an impact were making for our own future and that of our children. future.

The UNEP scientists tell us that in failing to address the atmosphere, land, water and biodiversity problems “we may threaten humanity’s survival”. Our way of thinking about how to solve these problems seems to stem from a desire to control everything, especially nature. Is this because deep down we are afraid of nature, so prefer to think of it as needing us to protect it? Rare animals for example need us to ‘save’ them by keeping them in a zoo, the most controlled of environments. But the truth is, we need nature and depend on her – no-one is going to save us by putting us in a zoo!

We need to wake up to the reality! More than 30% of the worlds amphibians, 23% of fish stocks and 12% of birds are now threatened with extinction. If these animals are struggling to survive now, how long before earth becomes a too hostile place for humans. More than two million people already die prematurely every year from indoor and outdoor pollution.

It feels like all these problems are linked to our need to run away from our unnatural lives, where we don’t get to express ourselves or use many of the skills we have, often not wanting to take responsibility for our own lives. Taking responsibility for our own lives is more than just survival, but about finding fulfillment, rather than escaping or being distracted by over-eating, drinking, shopping or playing computer games.

We humans don’t have all the answers and I believe that getting back in touch with the earth and listening to nature is what we need. A plant tells us it needs watering as it starts to wilt, so we water it. If we don’t the plant dies. The same goes for the health of our planet. The signs are all around us. Six in ten of the worlds leading rivers have been either dammed or diverted. One in ten of these rivers no longer reaches the sea for part of the year.

We can either watch this beautiful world shrivel and disappear or we can pull together, act now and breath life back into our home.

Whilst thumbing through the Times today I came across a full page advert that stopped me in my tracks. No doubt placed in part to coincide with the protests against a third runway being held at Heathrow. Tackling climate change is again and again referred to as the single most important issue to face mankind. . . . . oh, except for re-floating the credit fueled growth economy (or was that vested interests queueing for government handouts and and an easy ride for otherwise nonsensical developments?). . . . at least that is according to the Future Heathrow campaign, as seen in the Times. A campaign that directly contradicts recent editorial in the very same broadsheet. This well financed group purports to represent a host of trade unions, the CBI, the British chambers of Commerce and London First, amongst others. They are running a high profile advertising campaign extolling the virtues of aviation for jobs and growth. Well in these difficult and stressful times woe betide anyone who thinks past short term, panic decisions, to ape business as usual activities. As they see it a third runway at Heathrow is essential to maintain London’s competitiveness in a growing avaition sector. Whilst even Future Heathrow freely acknowledge that emissions will outstrip any efficiency gains, there is no further explanation as to how the UK could arrive at a meaningful reductions target without reducing air traffic.

Even under the conservative 80% reductions target, the bare minimum required to avoid runaway and catastrophic climate change, industry and government figures mean that the predicted growth in aviation would account for well over 50% of the total CO2 emissions for the whole of the UK economy! As we have discussed before on LowFlyZone, this is patent nonsense. Add to this the mounting scientific evidence that the already changing natural world is less able to absorb CO2 emissions than historically was the case and the folly of such short sighted development is clear.

If, alternatively, the UK commits to developing genuine, low or zero carbon modes of transport, communications, then we may just start to build a truly sustainable economy. Not only that but the evidence that tackling these issues could improve the well being of the majority of people is, I believe, compelling.

Time for government,  unions and business leaders to get their collective heads out of the credit crunch sand and think about the longer term future, or this recession we are starting to feel will seem like a walk in the park.

I travel lots in fact, just not by plane. I do miss my friends and family in Oz but soon I’ll try and find the time to hitch a ride on a cargo ship where my extra passage is almost irrelevant. But even those journeys will get less frequent in the bigger world of smaller economies based on ecological realities. Maybe the idea of true adventure will return to our lives as packaged flying and high speed global culture sinks on the storms of the post boom, too much food, too much stuff, post oil age. I think maybe I should teach my daughter to sail boats too.

If you have other short films or stories you think should be up here or just want to say what you think abou this film we’d love to know. . . .