An Airline Takes Flight Shaming Seriously by Announcing Goal of Carbon Neutrality

February 12, 2020 – In five days my wife and I will fly back home to Toronto from Costa Rica having spent two weeks in this beautiful country. Our roundtrip will produce 2.43 tons of carbon emissions with an offset cost of $48.60 CDN based on $20 per ton. I will pay this when I return to Toronto to a company that issues carbon offsets.

For us not to travel means staying in Toronto through the winter. With both my wife and I getting older and less mobile, remaining in the winter cold is not appealing. And frankly with fewer years left to us as septuagenarians, the chance to travel while we are still able medically is not something we would willing give up. So the least we can do is pay the carbon offset.

Carbon offsetting which we personally are practicing is predicted to become a multi-billion dollar business by 2025 according to Citigroup with the costs being absorbed by airlines and passed along to customers through increased airfares. The projected amount in offsets is expected to grow to $6.2 billion annually by then,

In personally choosing to pay for carbon offsets, we hope to reduce our collective carbon footprint regardless of the actions or inaction of the airline we fly.

What’s driving us to pay for the carbon we produce may be far different from what is driving airlines to look at carbon offsets. In their case it may be flight shaming.

When Greta Thunberg chose not to fly to the United Nations conference in New York, from Europe, she made of point of shaming the airline industry for its CO2 contributions to global warming. Thunberg chose to book passage on an ocean-going zero-carb0n catamaran which sailed across the Atlantic to land her in New York.

Ideally, it would be great to get to zero carbon for every sector of the global economy including aviation. But the likelihood of getting there soon for the airline industry seems next to impossible. Fossil-fuel powered commercial aircraft would have to be replaced by models powered by hydrogen, or electricity. They would have to be capable of long-distance travel carrying passenger loads equivalent to today’s aircraft.

If you look at aviation development then, shouldn’t we see the first prototypes being built? Nary a one in sight at the moment. Instead, we have small-load, short-haul demonstration technology at present and are probably a decade or more away from zero-carbon replacements to current passenger air fleets. That’s why for the duration it appears that the offset strategy is the route to go to give airlines a bit of reprieve before non-fossil fuel alternatives can emerge.

Among the early adopters of carbon offsets is the U.S. carrier, JetBlue. The company last month told investors that carbon emissions are “a clear and present danger” not just to the aviation industry, but the planet, and announced plans to become carbon neutral to address customer concerns over commercial flying’s impact on climate change. The airline announced:

1. It will begin to use sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) this year, produced by Neste, the world’s largest renewable diesel manufacturer.
2. It will select projects from around the world to offset its use of jet fuel, many of them in the Developing World where they can have a major impact.
3. It will largely focus on but not be limited to:
   • Forest conservation projects to sequester carbon dioxide (CO2)
   • Landfill gas (LFG) capture to be used as a renewable energy resource.
   • Solar and wind farm projects that replace fossil fuel power generation by coal, diesel and furnace oil.
   • Acquisition of more fuel-efficient beginning with 85 new Airbus A321neo, and 70 Airbus A220s (Bombardier C series) aircraft to help reduce carbon emissions per seat by about 40% from the existing fleet of aircraft.
   • Advocacy to improve air traffic control system which currently add as much as 12% in increased fuel use and carbon emissions.

Stated Robin Hayes, CEO of the airline, “Air travel connects people and cultures and supports a global economy, yet we must act to limit this critical industry’s contributions to climate change…We reduce where we can and offset where we can’t. By offsetting all of our domestic flying we’re preparing our business for the lower-carbon economy that aviation – and all sectors – must plan for.”

The alternative to offsets as advocated by some pundits is to stop commercial aviation entirely until zero-carbon technology can be put in place. Imagine the impact that would have on tourism, and commerce across the planet. Would the vast majority of us support such a move? I think not.