The Problem: Telling people not to fly does not win them over to fighting climate change and anyway has minimal impact.
The Solution: End the guilt trips about flying but get people to offset their flights to generate revenue to fight climate change.
Harry and Meghan were recently criticised for their perceived hypocrisy in preaching about the threat of climate change and then taking a flight in a private jet to meet Elton John in France. Elton defended them, saying he had offset the flight, but it did little to suppress the media outcry.
The incident is one in a long line of anti-air travel, including Greta Thunberg’s decision to sail across the Atlantic instead of flying.
Such an antipathy towards flying seems wholly misplaced and indeed does harm for the climate change movement, because air travel is responsible for only around 2% of global emissions but probably 20% (or likely more) of global happiness.
Air travel takes people on holidays, and for those in Britain is an escape from the cold and the drizzle of winter (or sometimes summer!). It also often takes people on eco-tourism trips to spend money visiting natural sites, which provides vital funds for conservation needed to prevent climate change.
Tony Blair said more than twenty years ago that no-one who told people they could not fly would ever get elected, and he was right. Not flying is just too big a sacrifice for most people.
Given that if all planes were grounded tomorrow, it would only reduce emissions by about 2% (which is close to negligible), it is ludicrous to focus so much on trying to stop air travel.
Instead, we should see it as an opportunity to raise funds to fight climate change through encouraging people to offset the carbon from their flights (offsetting is when you pay for an activity that will take carbon out of the atmosphere, for example planting trees).
Global air travel emits something like 600 million tonnes of CO2 per year, so offsetting at £10 per tonne (about £10 for a return flight London-New York, which anyone who can fly to New York can afford after spending £500 on a ticket!) would raise £6 billion, enough to plant around 30-50 billion trees a year.
By re-assuring people that they could still go on holiday, we would overcome a key barrier to engaging people and could also start to change the conversation about climate change, to show how individuals can take actions to avert climate change, not simply by reducing their emissions, but by offsetting them. Offsets can be amazing projects which inspire people to action, such as protecting the habitat of critically endangered (and incredibly cute) gorillas.
Criticising flying, given its minimal impact on emissions and its massive impact on happiness, is not the way to win the fight against climate change. Instead, we should focus more on offsetting. Flying without offsetting is wrong, yes, but if you offset then good for you, enjoy your holiday!
It’s a chance to start a movement, as people not only post their holiday pics on Instagram, but also images of the projects they fund to offset.
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