
Airlines Embrace Pollution Plan That Could Cost Them $24B - blondie9x
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-25/airlines-embrace-pollution-plan-that-could-cost-them-24-billion
======
sp332
I was wondering how airlines were going to cut emissions. Turns out they're
not.

 _To be clear, the 15-year agreement would not force airlines to cut their
pollution. Instead, companies would compensate for any emissions growth after
the accord begins in 2020 by buying credits that back renewable energy
development, forest preservation or other environmental endeavors._

~~~
phkahler
What a great barrier to competition. If a smaller airline grows, they'll have
to buy "credits".

Cap and Trade is political bullshit. If you want to tax carbon emissions, tax
the fuel coming out of the ground and let the drillers and diggers pass that
on to whomever uses the fuel. It's the only way to be fair about it. Otherwise
just accept that this is nothing more than a political game.

~~~
tzs
Why wouldn't the tax on fuel be a barrier to competition too, under your
reasoning? To grow, the smaller airline would need more fuel, and so would be
paying more.

Emissions are approximately proportional to fuel use, so I don't see how a tax
on fuel (which would be proportional to fuel use) would have any lesser or
greater effect than a credit system on emissions (assuming credits needed are
proportional to emissions).

~~~
hammock
If I understand the accord correctly, the difference is existing emissions are
grandfathered in/exempt. The offsets are only required on emissions growth
(new emissions above current levels). So a new entrant would have to pay the
"tax" on all new flights while the legacy carriers only pay on the difference
from present flights.

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gozur88
Cost _them_ $24B? Hahaha. No. Come on now, you _know_ airlines aren't going to
embrace anything that costs them money.

If every airline has to pay the fees, carriers will be free to raise prices to
cover the additional cost. Fewer people will fly, so ticket prices will go up
more, eventually reaching an equilibrium where the carriers make about what
they make today moving fewer people from place to place.

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JoeAltmaier
Air travel is already pretty efficient and clean? Certainly when calculating
emissions per passenger-mile. Compare them to shipping, which is at the other
end of the emissions spectrum. Lets hear something about cleaning up the oil-
burners sometime.

~~~
cossatot
Well of course per passenger-mile shipping is less efficient than air travel,
because shipping is primarily transportation for goods, not for people. A big
container ship has what, 20 people? Nonetheless, you're right that shipping
should receive more attention. I think that it's less visible, less
profitable, and more economically critical than air travel, which is often
seen as a luxury. This would make taxing it more of a tax on economic
activity.

Air travel produces a factor of ~100 more C02 per unit mass transported than
maritime transport [1].

It seems that shipping is a little understudied, but apparently a leaked UN
IPCC report (from 2008, so pre-crash, peak globalization) states that shipping
produced 1.1 billion tonnes† [2] of CO2 annually. This number is ~4x higher
than other studies so maybe it's more accurate, maybe it's not.

Air travel on the other hand produces 780 million tonnes of CO2 per year [3].
The major issue is that, as stated in TFA, it's supposed to triple in coming
decades. I am not sure that global shipping is.

†I am quoting 'tonnes' in both which I think refers to metric tons, not
imperial measurements, so I believe the units are comparable.

Shipping may be much easier to improve technologically than air travel,
though. I'm sure many of the ships burn low-quality diesel. However, they're
of the scale where very small nuclear reactors are available, and I have heard
talk of ships being powered by natural gas. Ships can also deal with heavy
batteries, so maybe in some instances offshore wind or solar farms could
provide electricity? I have also heard of ships actually being powered
_directly_ by wind, but maybe this is a rumor, some far off Silicon Valley
pipe dream.

[1]: [http://www.davidsuzuki.org/issues/climate-
change/science/cli...](http://www.davidsuzuki.org/issues/climate-
change/science/climate-change-basics/air-travel-and-climate-change/)

[2]:
[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/feb/13/climatec...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/feb/13/climatechange.pollution)

[3]: [http://www.atag.org/facts-and-figures.html](http://www.atag.org/facts-
and-figures.html)

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Shipping burns tar and sludge. The worst smokey emissions possible. Its
appalling.

