BreakingNews·220512-Airlines miss most of their climate change targets
Airlines miss most of their climate change targets
A new report says airlines in the U.K. have missed all their climate change targets since 2000, except one. The U.K. aviation industry has set more than 50 climate targets in the past two decades. These included using greener fuels for airplanes and making fuel more efficient. The climate group Possible did research on the airline industry. It said the aviation industry has failed to reduce its carbon footprint. Leo Murray from Possible told the BBC: "Companies set grand-sounding targets with a lot of fanfare.…They talk about them for a couple of years. Then the targets sink without trace, never to be seen again." Mr Murray said the industry's climate record "is exceptionally poor".
The airline industry creates a lot of greenhouse gases. In 2018, air travel was responsible for seven per cent of the UK's greenhouse gas emissions. Mr Murray said this was a problem. He said the UK's goal to be net zero by 2050 "can't be met without every sector of the economy pulling its weight". Possible wants frequent fliers to pay more. More than 70 per cent of flights in the U.K. are taken by just 15 per cent of residents. Murray also wants the government to make sustainable transport like rail or ferries cheaper and easier to use. Possible said the airline EasyJet was the only company to have met a target. It successfully reduced the amount of fuel an airplane burns per passenger kilometre by three per cent.
