You're right, air travel is just a drop on a hot plate, and is by far the cleanest way of transporting hundreds of people in (relative) comfort over vast distances. Try taking a Tesla from SF to Amsterdam.

But eliminating all coal plants in the world is not feasible in the short term. Germany tried it a while back. Turns out that some days are too dark to catch enough sunlight. Turns out that sometimes the wind doesn't blow.

Then you'd have to restart the coal plants again because they are reliable sources of energy.

Or we should consider going nuclear. Which makes perfect sense in regions like Europe where there is hardly any danger of earth quakes and tsunamis.

But Europe has bad memories of that because of outdated tech in eastern Europe going haywire.

It'll take another generation or so to get to the point where we can shut down coal plants.