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Air travel makes up for 2.5% of global carbon emissions. Not really worth micro optimizing a lot in those 2.5% if you asked me. At least not if you can focus ef

by jupp0r 7y ago

Air travel makes up for 2.5% of global carbon emissions. Not really worth micro optimizing a lot in those 2.5% if you asked me. At least not if you can focus efforts in energy production and cars instead.

rb666 7y ago
Ya think? "Unless market constraints are put in place, growth in aviation emissions will result in the sector's emissions amounting to all or nearly all of the annual global CO 2 emissions budget by mid-century, if climate change is to be held to a temperature increase of 2 °C or less." (from: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Environmental_impact_of_aviation https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Environmental_impact_of_aviation)
- ekianjo 7y ago
  Growth is not something that continues forever. There's already constraints on the aviation industry (lack of pilots, congested routes) that will anyway slow down the growth significantly as time goes.
- ekianjo 7y ago
  The same links says: "The central case estimate is that aviation's contribution could grow to five percent of the total contribution by 2050 if action is not taken to tackle these emissions, though the highest scenario is 15 percent." So which is it? 5%/15% or 100% by 2050?
- jupp0r 7y ago
  The article you quote validates my point by assuming other emissions can be decreased to a minimum. If all emissions we have to worry about in 2050 was air travel, that would be spectacularly good news!
- easytiger 7y ago
  once you get rid of other big thing, this now small thing becomes big, relatively speaking. Getting rid of air travel completely would give 0.03 degree tep benefit
- api 7y ago
  That assumes vast reductions in emissions from every other sector except air travel, for physical energy density reasons. Air travel alone is not sufficient to affect climate much... if we were to get rid of fossil fuels on the ground.
- rsynnott 7y ago
  That's in the scenario where fossil fuel use elsewhere is essentially eliminated; eliminating it for air travel is obviously particularly challenging.
mrpopo 7y ago
This is a pretty common fallacy that I read every few days on HN. Air transportation is a major contributor to CO2, if you limit the scope to the people who use it. It is estimated that about 80% of the world's adults have never taken a flight, and 94% of the world's adults have not taken a flight in over a year. So, the real picture is that this 2.5% of global CO2 emissions are caused by as few as 6% of the population, who also are incidentally the richest and bear a high personal carbon footprint in other domains than transportation. Also please remember that the aviation sector is growing, and therefore its global contribution to GHG emissions will grow as well in the future. Discounting the carbon footprint of the aviation sector based on today's numbers is a mistake. If you do not want to impede on your ability to travel, you shouldn't object to it for the 94% of the population that want the same thing as you, and when it becomes available to them the aviation sector's emissions will increase 15-fold.
- leetcrew 7y ago
  everyone has that one thing that they don't want to give up to help reduce emissions. I'll admit for me it's fast cars. for a lot of people on HN, it seems to be that they don't want to sacrifice travel or visiting that distant family member. I've seen people go so far as to argue that the holistic benefit of seeing other places is worth the cost in emissions. I suspect if emissions were priced into air travel, we would start to see a lot of businesses realizing that video can replace a lot of in-person meetings. we might also see people start to place more value in living close to the people they care about.
  - vidarh 7y ago
    Really we ought to price in the genuine cost of countering whatever emissions a product or service causes. My guess is that the effect that would have on demand for different product and services would surprise us, in that I don't think we understand very well where people would cut when externalities are priced in, partly because we're bad at estimating what value people put on different things, and partly because we're bad at assessing what impact different things has when e.g. factoring in supply lines.
- jupp0r 7y ago
netsharc 7y ago
What problems do we tackle if everything is just "a small percentage" of the big issue? Also, would you give up 2.5% of your net worth?
- Cthulhu_ 7y ago
  According to https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emissions https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emis..., the biggest sources are electricity and heat production, transport, and manufacturing (I suspect livestock is part of the manufacturing stat). So for CO2 emissions, switch to renewables; for methane and nitrous oxide, do something about agriculture. But please don't mention going vegan; that MIGHT only improve the situation by 0.000000001%. It can only be done if on a national scale meat production and consumption is reduced, or we find a way to capture / sequester methane / nox emissions. Factory farming shouldn't have an excuse in that regard, they keep their animals indoors anyway.
leetcrew 7y ago
when you break up carbon emissions by industry, you get a lot of buckets that make up <10% individually. you can't ignore all of them because they're too small to be worth optimizing. also, instead of focusing on optimizing emissions per mile, why not ask how many flights are actually necessary? at the same time that we invest in electric vehicles, cleaner power generation, and public transit, we might also ask if it's really necessary to vacation overseas. we might ask if video chat could replace flying to meet the board or a client.

by jupp0r 7y ago

rb666 7y ago

Ya think? "Unless market constraints are put in place, growth in aviation emissions will result in the sector's emissions amounting to all or nearly all of the annual global CO 2 emissions budget by mid-century, if climate change is to be held to a temperature increase of 2 °C or less." (from: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Environmental_impact_of_aviation https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Environmental_impact_of_aviation)

ekianjo 7y ago
Growth is not something that continues forever. There's already constraints on the aviation industry (lack of pilots, congested routes) that will anyway slow down the growth significantly as time goes.
ekianjo 7y ago
The same links says: "The central case estimate is that aviation's contribution could grow to five percent of the total contribution by 2050 if action is not taken to tackle these emissions, though the highest scenario is 15 percent." So which is it? 5%/15% or 100% by 2050?
jupp0r 7y ago
The article you quote validates my point by assuming other emissions can be decreased to a minimum. If all emissions we have to worry about in 2050 was air travel, that would be spectacularly good news!
easytiger 7y ago
once you get rid of other big thing, this now small thing becomes big, relatively speaking. Getting rid of air travel completely would give 0.03 degree tep benefit
api 7y ago
That assumes vast reductions in emissions from every other sector except air travel, for physical energy density reasons. Air travel alone is not sufficient to affect climate much... if we were to get rid of fossil fuels on the ground.
rsynnott 7y ago
That's in the scenario where fossil fuel use elsewhere is essentially eliminated; eliminating it for air travel is obviously particularly challenging.

mrpopo 7y ago

This is a pretty common fallacy that I read every few days on HN. Air transportation is a major contributor to CO2, if you limit the scope to the people who use it. It is estimated that about 80% of the world's adults have never taken a flight, and 94% of the world's adults have not taken a flight in over a year. So, the real picture is that this 2.5% of global CO2 emissions are caused by as few as 6% of the population, who also are incidentally the richest and bear a high personal carbon footprint in other domains than transportation. Also please remember that the aviation sector is growing, and therefore its global contribution to GHG emissions will grow as well in the future. Discounting the carbon footprint of the aviation sector based on today's numbers is a mistake. If you do not want to impede on your ability to travel, you shouldn't object to it for the 94% of the population that want the same thing as you, and when it becomes available to them the aviation sector's emissions will increase 15-fold.

leetcrew 7y ago
everyone has that one thing that they don't want to give up to help reduce emissions. I'll admit for me it's fast cars. for a lot of people on HN, it seems to be that they don't want to sacrifice travel or visiting that distant family member. I've seen people go so far as to argue that the holistic benefit of seeing other places is worth the cost in emissions. I suspect if emissions were priced into air travel, we would start to see a lot of businesses realizing that video can replace a lot of in-person meetings. we might also see people start to place more value in living close to the people they care about.
- vidarh 7y ago
  Really we ought to price in the genuine cost of countering whatever emissions a product or service causes. My guess is that the effect that would have on demand for different product and services would surprise us, in that I don't think we understand very well where people would cut when externalities are priced in, partly because we're bad at estimating what value people put on different things, and partly because we're bad at assessing what impact different things has when e.g. factoring in supply lines.
jupp0r 7y ago

netsharc 7y ago

What problems do we tackle if everything is just "a small percentage" of the big issue? Also, would you give up 2.5% of your net worth?

Cthulhu_ 7y ago
According to https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emissions https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emis..., the biggest sources are electricity and heat production, transport, and manufacturing (I suspect livestock is part of the manufacturing stat). So for CO2 emissions, switch to renewables; for methane and nitrous oxide, do something about agriculture. But please don't mention going vegan; that MIGHT only improve the situation by 0.000000001%. It can only be done if on a national scale meat production and consumption is reduced, or we find a way to capture / sequester methane / nox emissions. Factory farming shouldn't have an excuse in that regard, they keep their animals indoors anyway.

leetcrew 7y ago

when you break up carbon emissions by industry, you get a lot of buckets that make up <10% individually. you can't ignore all of them because they're too small to be worth optimizing. also, instead of focusing on optimizing emissions per mile, why not ask how many flights are actually necessary? at the same time that we invest in electric vehicles, cleaner power generation, and public transit, we might also ask if it's really necessary to vacation overseas. we might ask if video chat could replace flying to meet the board or a client.