There are over 100,000 flights daily. They account for about 2.5% of CO2 emissions yearly.
You know what is? Coal power plants that generate electricity.
Maybe we should focus on electricity generation from coal. I’m a little surprised that more hasn’t been done.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-worlds-coal-power-plants
13 years ago Google attempted their RE<C project.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/williampentland/2014/11/30/why-...
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.
EDIT: I'll add to this 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.
Ok, in all seriousness, the efficiency story for air travel is... complicated. So you claim planes account for 2.5% of CO2 emissions but air travel and transport is still a relative luxury enjoyed by a privileged few so that's not necessary accurate.
I found this [1] that shows planes to be much worse than automobiles (per passenger per km) but again, it's complicated.
Personally I don't mind the investment in supersonic travel. After all, it's hard to know what fruit this will ultimately bear. Some people have asked what's the difference between crossing the Atlantic in 4 hours instead of 8? It's the difference between able to go for the day or not.
[1]: https://youmatter.world/en/plane-or-cars-which-means-of-tran...
Which points to how increases in capability and efficiency can stimulate demand, which could be a bad thing from an environmental perspective.
The carbon footprint of one transatlantic flight is on the same order of magnitude as one person's yearly electricity consumption.
People who fly every year can substantially reduce their carbon footprint by not flying, people who already don't fly every year (the majority of the population) can't.
What is a fair split?
Of course, if you want to keep flying at 800 km/h around the globe AND get power for your home's computers and 4k TV, you will have to advocate for cutting electricity AND blocking air transport of some other people until their coal plants are powered with solar panels. It's your right to decide so, but you have to admit it that it's unethical.
And what about the billions extra that the developing world is predicted to add to global population?
First the ship has already sailed for most of Asia, where the fertility rate is already below 2 or near 2, and the billions extra are just from people getting older. China's population for instance is already expected to decrease from 2030-2035. Asking from these countries to reduce their population is equivalent to asking them to reduce their life expectancy.
In central Africa, the fertility rate is still very high, indeed. But now, remember we are talking about splitting carbon emissions? They already don't emit any carbon. Reducing the fertility rate would still be a good idea, for other reasons (they will be the most impacted by climate change-related disasters for instance).
If 100 million people fly and contribute 2.5% of emissions, and 7 billion people contribute 25% of the omissions are using coal generated electricity, which probably should you solve?
2) The 100 million people who fly have the most concentrated wealth and therefore have more leeway to implement alternatives to flying (high-speed rail for flights within the US for example).
3) You could also imagine the 100 million people investing to build new low-carbon electricity generation infrastructures in developing countries via a carbon tax on their flight ticket. Of course, they could donate directly as well, either solution is fine. That was actually the spirit of the Paris agreement, which Trump walked out of. Since the 100 million people who fly actively refuse to let go of their wealth, alternative options such as 2) are being considered, even though they might have lower impact (since they affect on the 2.5% of GHG emissions instead of the 25% of GHG emissions).
Ignoring the coal problem, and actually greatly increasing the coal usage in the past 20 years, has pushed us into a corner where we need miracles. Now "everything" must be addressed!
If you like capitalism and fear "socialism" (which I assume anyone needling people about "fairness" this way does) then that is what allocates resources given constraints of the real world. Accepting that one of the constraints is a limitation on burning fossil fuels for the entire globe does not require changes to society beyond normal responses to price signals. Nor decisions by some authority, other than the overall cap.
Figuring out who gives up what from a central command is both impossible and unnecessary, so it shouldn't be part of the discussion. What "socialists" even advocate Soviet style central planning anymore?
There is no silver bullet for reducing your carbon footprint. You should lower emissions for all industries at the same time.
Each "wedge" is one method of reducing net CO2 output by 1 gigaton/year by 2054. Each wedge is a major economic and technological undertaking. Current estimates are that 13 wedges would be needed to limit CO2 to below 500 ppm. We have currently implemented 0 wedges.
Coal is 25% of carbon emissions. We could have reduced this 2 decades ago. Instead we’re quibbling over 2.5% of emissions.
The generally accepted emissions weighting factor for aviation co2 emissions is ~2.6. So it's more like 6.5%, and growing fast.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_aviati...
Also, it's not all about co2. I'm quite sure planes release a lot of other nasty things.