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Air travel poses major threat to biodiversity, say scientists

Alien species and diseases invading new habitats

Airline passenger numbers rising by 8% a year

lan Sample

Global air travel has become one of the greatest threats to biodiversity and public health by driving the spread of alien species and infectious diseases to new habitats, scientists report today.

The explosive growth of worldwide airlines has seen passenger numbers rise 8% a year in the past three years, creating travel networks that link remote and isolated ecosystems for the first time, boosting the spread of micro-organisms and insects to unprecedented levels, the scientists claim. The introduction of insects and other organisms from foreign regions has triggered ecological disasters around the globe. Many have no natural predators and thrive at the expense of native species which have not had time to evolve defences against the invaders.

Researchers at Oxford University analysed records for more than 3m scheduled flights between 3,570 airports around the world between May 2005 and April 2006 and calculated the most heavily-used routes. They then overlaid global climate maps, revealing the times of year different parts of the world experienced the best conditions for alien species to survive. By combining the information Andrew Tatem and Simon Hay at the university's spatial ecology and epidemiology group highlighted "invasion hotspots", the destinations most at risk from insects and micro-organisms being carried into the countries throughout the year.

The scientists found that the greatest threat to any country occurred from June to August, when many regions experienced similar climatic conditions and passenger numbers peaked. But closer inspection revealed specific routes that were at high risk of transferring organisms between distant countries. In January the greatest risk to Britain and other parts of Europe was found to come from air travel links with east China and Japan, while in July the risk shifted to routes servicing the east coast of South America. The analysis showed that the isolated Hawaiian islands, widely regarded as suffering the worst ecological damage from invasive species, were at risk from several countries within the space of a few months, as the climate varied to match that of east Asia, Central America and the Caribbean.

The wide-ranging climate and large number of airports put the US at greatest risk, with eastern US airports strongly linked to Mediterranean and Asia airports in January, and west coast airports most at risk from incoming flights from the Middle East and southern Africa in April.

guardian.co.uk/science »

Revealed: The real cost of air travel

By Michael McCarthy, Marie Wootf and Michael Harrison

It might be cheap, but it's going to cost the earth. The cut-price airline ticket is fuelling a boom that will make countering global warming impossible.

The tens of thousands of Britons jetting off on cheap flights this weekend have been given graphic reminders by leading green groups that the huge surge in mass air travel is becoming one of the biggest causes of climate change.

Unless the boom in cheap flights is halted, say Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace, Britain and other countries will simply not be able to meet targets for cutting back on the emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) that are causing the atmosphere to warm, with potentially disastrous consequences.

In spelling out what is for most people - and for many politicians - a very uncomfortable truth, they are echoing the warnings of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution and the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee.

The scientists of the former and the MPs of the latter have set out in detail how the soaring growth in CO2 emissions from aircraft that the cheap flights bonanza is promoting will do terrible damage to the atmosphere and make a nonsense of global warming targets, such as Britain's stated aim of cutting CO2 emissions by 60 per cent by 2050. British emissions of COa from aircraft, expressed in millions of tons of carbon, shot up from 4.6 million tons in 1990 to 8.8 million tons in 2000. But based on predicted air passenger transport growth figures - from 180 million passengers per year today to 476 million passengers per year by 2030 - they are expected to rise to 17.7 million tons in 2030.

Aircraft emissions that go directly into the stratosphere have more than twice the global warming effect of emissions from cars and power stations at ground level and, based on the Government's own calculations, the effect of the 2030 emissions will be equivalent to 44.3 million tons of carbon - 45 per cent of Britain's expected emissions total at that date.

That growth alone, the environmental audit committee says, will make Britain's 60 per cent C02 reduction target "meaningless and unachievable". The clash of interests cannot be ducked any more, say the green groups. "The convenience we enjoy in covering huge distances in a short time is one of the fast-growing threats to life on earth," said Tony Juniper, the executive director of Friends of the Earth.

"Aviation is an increasing source of climate-changing pollution and we must take steps to curb it now. Planes pump out eight times more carbon dioxide per passenger mile than a train. A return flight to Australia will release as much carbon dioxide as all the heating, light and cooking for a house for a year."

Blake Lee-Harwood, campaigns director for Greenpeace, said: "The simple fact is the boom in cheap air travel cannot be reconciled with the survival of those things we most value about the planet, and will ultimately kill millions of people.

"The only way to stop the problem is to reduce our flying. We just have to accept public transport and highly efficient cars are the only kinds of routine transport we can sensibly use, and air travel is just for special occasions. We may not like that hard truth but we don't have a choice."

The green groups feel the only solution is to cut back on demand by forcing prices up, especially as commercial aviation has long benefited from a very easy tax regime. In other words, people will have to be "priced off planes" and the cheap flights bonanza will have to end.

Bizarrely, the Government is facing in two directions at once. In the 2003 energy White Paper, it committed itself to tackling climate change and announced its 60percentCO2 target. But in the aviation White Paper later that year, it promised to facilitate the expected mass increase in air traffic, if necessary by providing several new runways to cope with increased demand

There is no sign of the two positions being reconciled by Tony Blair. Yesterday, it appeared the leaders of the G8 group of nations, set to put climate change at the top of the agenda at this summer's G8 meeting in Scotland which Tony Blair will chair, are also flunking the issue. A leaked draft of a climate change communique showed they were promising more research into the effects of aircraft emissions, but shying away from any commitment to raise ticket prices. One of the leading advocates of an emissions trading scheme for airlines is among a group of UK business leaders who wrote to Tony Blair yesterday calling for a "step change" in efforts to tackle climate change. Mike Clasper, the chief executive of BAA, has been the aviation industry's most outspoken supporter of the idea of forcing airlines to pay for excessive carbon emissions, even though it could be financially damaging to many of his customers. Mr Clasper and 12 other senior businessmen say companies are deterred from investing in low carbon technologies because of the lack of long-term government policies and concern that their international competitiveness will be harmed. Other signatories to the letter include the chairman of HSBC bank, Sir John Bond, the chairman of the John Lewis Partnership, Sir Stuart Hampson and the chief executive of Scottish Power, lan Russell.

•Air travel produces 19 times the greenhouse gas emissions of trains; and 190 times that of a ship.

• Aviation could contribute 15 per cent of greenhouse gases each year if unchecked.

• Greenhouse gas emissions caused by UK air travel have doubled in the past 13 years, from 20.1m tons in 1990 to 39.5m tons in 2004.

• During the same period emissions from UK cars rose by 8m tons, to 67.8m tons.

• One return flight to Florida produces the equivalent CO2 of a year's average motoring.

• Emissions at altitude have 2.4-2.7 times the environmental impact of those on the ground.

• Air travel is growing at UK airports at an average of 4.25 per cent. In 1970, 32 million flew from UK airports; in 2002, 189 million. By 2030 there will some 500 million passengers.

• Cargo transportation is growing by 7 per cent a year. In 1970,580,000 tons of freight were moved by plane; in 2002, 2.2 million tons. It is forecast to reach 5 million tons in 2010.

• 50 per cent of the UK population flew at least once in 2001.

• Flying 1kg of asparagus from California to the UK uses 900 times more energy than the home-grown equivalent.

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G8 will not set targets to cut global warming

By Marie Woolf

Chief Political Correspondent

The G8 summit is to discuss the role of nuclear power in reducing climate change - but it is not preparing to set new targets or a timetable to reduce global warming, according to a leaked document.

A draft outlining the "commitments" industrialised nations will make on climate change shows no new timetable for cutting carbon emissions or any ambitious new targets for progress after 2012.

But it discloses that talks about "cleaner" technologies will include nuclear power, despite public opposition to expanding the technology in the UK.

The draft text, outlining the key climate change issues for the G8 summit, says that the summit, which is being chaired by the UK in Gleneagles in July, will end with a joint "statement" on nuclear power.

Yesterday green groups seized on the paper as evidence that the G8 summit would be a talking shop and said the initiatives being prepared were "weak", "ineffective" and lacked "urgency".

The paper - Draft G8 Climate Change and SustainableEnergy -shows aviation will be high on the agenda. But there is no mention of taxing airline fuel - a policy opposed by the US.

Instead, the draft says more cash should be pumped into research into climate science "to inform technological and operational responses

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George Monbiot

We all know the damage aviation does, but the government and the airlines want to turn the country into Airstrip One

At last the battlelines have been drawn, and the first major fight over climate change is about to begin. All over the country, a coalition of home-. owners and anarchists, of Nimbys and internationalists, is mustering to fight the greatest future cause of global warming: the growth of aviation.

Not all these people care about the biosphere. Some are concerned merely that their homes are due to be bull-- • dozed, or that, living under the new flight paths, they will never get a good night's sleep again. But anyone who has joined a broad-based coalition understands the power of this compound of idealism and dogged self-interest.

The industry has seen it, and is getting its revenge in first. Last week the Guardian obtained a leaked copy of a draft treaty between the European Union and the US that would prevent us from taking any measure to reduce the environmental impact of airlines without the approval of the US government. This, though it might be the widest-ranging, is not the first such agreement; the 1944 Chicago convention, now supported by 4,000 bilateral treaties, rules that no government may levy tax on aviation fuel. The airlines have been bottle-fed throughout their lives.

The British government admits that the only area in which it is "free to make policy in isolation from other countries" is airport development; it could contain or reverse the growth of flights by restricting airport capacity. Instead, it is softening us up for a third runway at Heathrow, and similar extensions at Stansted, Birmingham, Edinburgh and Glasgow. Twelve other airports have .already announced expansion plans. According to the Commons environmental audit committee, the growth the government foresees will require "the equivalent of another Heathrow every five years". Orwell's most accurate prediction in 1984 was the mutation of Britain into Airstrip One.

Already, one fifth of all international air passengers fly to or from an airport in the UK. The numbers have risen fivefold in the past 30 years, and the government envisages that they will more than double by 2030, to 476 million a year. Perhaps "envisages" is the wrong word. By providing the capacity, the government ensures that the growth takes place.

As far as climate change is concerned, this is an utter, unparalleled disaster. It's not just that aviation represents the world's fastest growing source of carbon dioxide emissions. The burning of aircraft fuel has a "radiative forcing ratio" of around 2.7; what this means is that the total warming effect of aircraft emissions is 2.7 times as great as the effect of the carbon dioxide alone. The water vapour they produce forms ice crystals in the upper troposphere (vapour trails and cirrus clouds) that trap the earth's heat. According to calculations by the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, if you added the two effects together (it urges some caution as they are not directly comparable), aviation emissions alone would exceed the government's target for the country's entire output of greenhouse gases in 2050 by around 134%. The government has an effective means of dealing with this, It excludes international aircraft emissions from the target.

It won't engage in honest debate because there is no means of reconciling its plans with its claims about sustain-ability. In researching my book about how we might achieve a 90% cut in carbon emissions by 2030,1 have been discovering, greatly to my surprise, that every other source of global warming can be reduced or replaced to that degree without a serious reduction in our freedoms. But there is no means of sustaining long-distance, high-speed travel.

The industry claims it can reduce its emissions by means of technological

developments. But, as the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution points out, its targets "are clearly aspirations rather than projections". There are some basic technological constraints that make major improvements impossible to envisage.

The first problem is that our planes have a remarkably long design life. The Boeing 747 is still in the air 36 years after it left the drawing board. The Tyndall Centre predicts that the new Airbus A380 will still be flying, "in gradually modified form", in 2070. Switching to more efficient models would mean scrapping the existing fleet.

Some designers have been playing with the idea of "blended wing bodies": planes with hollow wings in which the passengers sit. In principle they could reduce the use of fuel by up to 30%. But the idea, and its safety and stability, is far from proven. Yet this is as good as it gets. As the Advisory Council for Aeronautics Research in Europe says: "The consensus view is that the rate of progress for conventional engines will slow down significantly in the next 10 years." And if the efficiency of engines does improve, this doesn't necessarily solve the problem. More efficient engines tend to be noisier (so even less acceptable to local people), and to produce more water vapour (which means that their total climate impact could in fact be higher). Even if the outermost promise of a 30% cut could be met, it would offset only a fraction of the extra fuel use caused by rising demand.

The airline companies keep talking about hydrogen planes, but if ever the technological problems were overcome they would be an even bigger disaster than current models. "Switching from kerosene to hydrogen," the royal commission says, "would replace carbon dioxide from aircraft with a threefold increase in emissions of water vapour." Biofuels would need more arable land than the planet possesses. The British government admits that "there is no viable alternative currently visible to kerosene as an aviation fuel." ,

New fuel consumption figures for both fast passenger ships and ultra-high-speed trains suggest that their carbon emissions are comparable to those of planes. What all this means is that if we want to stop the planet from cooking, we will simply have to stop travelling at the kind of speeds that planes permit.

This is now broadly understood by almost everyone I meet. But it has had no impact whatever on their behaviour. When I challenge my friends about their planned weekend in Rome or their holiday in Florida, they respond with a strange, distant smile and avert their eyes. They just want to enjoy themselves. Who am I to spoil their fun? The moral dissonance is deafening.

Despite the claims made for the democratising effects of cheap travel, 75% of those who use budget airlines are in social classes A, B and C. People with second homes abroad average six return flights a year, while people in classes D and E hardly fly; they can't afford the holidays, so are responsible for just 6% of flights. Most of the growth, the government envisages, will take place among the wealthiest 10%. But the people who are being hit first and will be hit hardest by climate change are among the poorest on earth. Already the droughts in Ethiopia, putting millions at risk of starvation, are being linked to the warming of the Indian Ocean. Some 92 million Bangladeshis could be driven out of their homes this century in order that we can still go shopping in New York.

Flying kills. We all know it, and we all do it. And we won't stop doing it until the government reverses its policy and starts closing the runways.

www. monbiot. Com

"Biofuels would need more arable land than the planet possesses. " .....see article below

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Are aviation pollution claims a flight of fancy?

A new report by the European Low Fares Airline Association concludes that aviation is being unfairly blamed for C02 emissions. Airline bosses have been quick to respond with some strong words of their own.

Ros Taylor reports

The usual cocktail of nitrous oxides, sulphur dioxide and hydrocarbons swirling around Britain's , airports has just been augmented by a strong whiff of indignation.

Willie Walsh, the chief executive of British Airways, used a conference in Ireland earlier this month to fire off a bullish defence of his industry. "While it is crucial that aviation takes action on emissions, the notion that flying is a selfish, antisocial activity that single-handedly threatens planetary catastrophe bears no relation to the evidence," he said.

He is not the only airline boss to have challenged the claims of the environmental lobby in recent weeks. Flybe's chief commercial officer tore into "misinformed environmentalists" who peddle the "myth" that aviation is a major polluter, and easyJet's chief executive, Andy Harrison, shared his outrage: "Aviation is not the environment's biggest enemy — not today and not tomorrow," he said.

What triggered these outbursts was a report by the European Low Fares Airline Association (ELFAA) examining how a European Commission proposal for an emissions trading scheme would affect EU economies. It concluded that aviation is being unfairly blamed for 002 emissions and that penalising airlines for them would harm both EU integration and the European economy.

BA is not a member of ELFAA, and Walsh said he did want to see a "working international system of emissions trading for aviation" to be introduced as soon as possible. "This is not a painless option for airlines," he said. "If we increase our emissions, we will have to pick up the bill." Nonetheless, he added, UK planes only contributed around 0.1% of global emissions, and it was wrong to imagine that banning flying tomorrow would halt the damage.

Figures like these are a comfort to anyone who flies on business, particularly if they are beginning to wonder whether they ought to make an effort to avoid taking the plane. But are they reliable?

I put Walsh's figures to Peter Lockley of the Aviation Environment Foundation. Had environmentalists really overestimated the damage aviation was doing? On the contrary, he said, Walsh was grossly underestimating it. The percentage he gave "wilfully ignores the non-CO2 effects of aviation" and the fact that carbon dioxide causes more damage when it is released at high altitudes.

Lockley estimates that the "uplift" factor makes emissions 2.7 times more damaging and says his own calculations suggest that aviation accounts for around 13% of all the UK's greenhouse gas emissions. Furthermore, for all the improvements in fuel efficiency, the boom in cheap flying means that aviation is the fastest growing source of greenhouse gases.

Scientific consensus

BA's boss wants any emissions trading scheme to discount this "uplift" effect because, he argues, "there is little scientific consensus" about it. (Another expert I spoke to put the figure at 2.4.) He believes that a simpler scheme would be easier to administer. But Flybe and easyJet are furious at the idea that their newer and cleaner fleets should pay the same penalty as the older jets flown by their rivals.

"We fly brand-new aircraft with some of the highest load factors in the business," says easyJet's Harrison. "We have always argued for bankrupt inefficient airlines to leave the sector and eliminate the unprofitable flying that is usually done on older, dirtier aircraft."

He has a point. SAS, some of whose business customers now add up "their" emissions to calculate how much to donate to carbon offset programmes, recently introduced an emissions calculator on its website. Even a tool as simplistic as this one reveals just how difficult it is to quantify the effect of a particular journey. The proportion of seats occupied, the temperature, the wind direction and the presence of cargo all play a part. But the ageing McDonnell Douglas planes in the SAS fleet do emit significantly more pollution than the more modern Airbuses.

It gets more complicated. Do you take into account the carbon load involved in travelling to and from airports? Do you consider the altitude at which the plane flies? Internal flights, for example, are more likely to use turbo-props, which fly lower than jets and are less likely to produce contrails that are thought to exacerbate the effects of their emissions. The calculations are fraught with pitfalls. Is it really possible to make a meaningful comparison between journeys by plane, train and car?

Paul Upham, a research fellow at the Tyndall Centre, which researches sustainable ways of tackling climate change, believes it is. He has used the European Environment Agency's preferred measure of fuel consumption, Corinair, to compare the journey from Manchester to Guernsey. A fully-loaded Saab 200 turbo-prop on this route produces 103kg of CO2 per passenger, while a Nissan Micra carrying one emits 226kg. Obviously, that figure is cut dramatically if two or more people are sharing the car. But Upham admits he was "very surprised" at the finding.

"Planes aren't the evil things relative to cars that people imagine," he says. Trains are still the least polluting form of transport for longer journeys. But even trains have their own carbon load, and not all trains are equal: diesels are more polluting than electric trains, for example. "This is what people need to accept. We need to travel less by plane. But we need to travel less per se."

Practical alternatives

Lockley agrees. Later this year the AEF will launch a website called Flyless.org, which will suggest practical alternatives to business travel, such as videoconferencing. He thinks it unlikely that the proposed emissions trading scheme will make a significant difference. "The aviation industry knows the only meaningful way it can moderate its emissions is to reduce its growth rates, something it isn't prepared to do. Instead, it touts emissions trading as a solution that will allow the market to decide where reductions can be made at least cost." Quite probably, he says, the industry will swap emissions for renewable energy projects in the developing world — "the cheapest way for carbon permits to leak into an emissions trading scheme to ensure that those covered by it don't have to make any real reductions".

But Upham believes carbon offset schemes of the kind offered by Climate Care can be useful as long as the projects are of a good quality and do not simply involve planting trees. Renewable energy projects can be worthwhile, he says, and the Tyndall Centre is hoping to receive funding to research what makes a good one. He is keen on the prospect of biofuels derived from plant waste - which Virgin Atlantic is investigating - although these are still some way off. And he points out that airlines have a constant incentive to improve fuel efficiency because of rising oil prices. "They've made amazing strides and they will make amazing strides in the future," he says.

We will find out this summer whether the European Commission—which kicked off the low-fares revolution in the first place by opening up the EU's airspace to new carriers - will force the airlines to pay a little more to pollute. Many hope that the Single European Skies programme will make the EU's fragmented air traffic control networks more efficient and cut down on emissions. In the meantime, the message for business travellers with an environmental conscience is this: if you must travel and the trains are unworkable, then at least don't take the car.

biofuels derived from plant waste - note the comment in the article before, which remarks on the unacceptable area of cultivated bio-fuel required