20 February 2008

Cheapflights defends air travel as study highlights environmental impact of shipping

Cheapflights has hit out at the shipping industry for its impact on the environment after the leak of a UN study on CO2 emissions.

The study calculates that the shipping industry is responsible for 1.12bn tonnes of CO2 emissions, which accounts for 4.5% of all global emissions.

By comparison, Cheapflights said emissions caused by aviation amount to just over 650m tones.

Cheapflights' CEO David Soskin said: 'It's about time people woke up to the environmental dangers of shipping.

'We at Cheapflights have been raising awareness on the subject for years, but environmental lobbyists have kept the focus on airlines, using them as an easy target instead of heeding our warnings on other culprits.'

He said the airline industry has taken 'great strides towards the introduction of environmentally friendly aircraft, such as the Boeing Dreamliner and Airbus 380, both of which use 20% less fuel'.

'Additional industry-wide measures are also underway addressing greenhouse gas emissions by aircraft, including a recent flight trial between British Airways and Shell using less polluting aviation fuels,' he added.

By Bev Fearis

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Your Comments (5)

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This climate change has always meant to happen..it says in the bible that things like this will happen towards the end of the world, CO2 emissions are only adding to what is meant to be!

By jenni murray, Friday, October 3, 2008
Individual choices are key

Environmentalists only speak about air travel because of the huge impact that flights have on an individuals' carbon footprint. Whilst a person can choose not to fly, they can't really choose not to heat their house, though the CO2 produced heating a house for a year is roughly the same as one long-haul flight (or driving an average car for 10,000 miles). Shipping needs to be cut down massively, and to drive this we need to localise economies. Unfortunately, even once we've done this it's unlikely we'll have enough of a carbon budget left over to fly to each localised economies. We need to have a radical approach taken internationally that embraces all of these things. Until that point, a way to simplify understanding about our individual choices, is to look at personal carbon footprints. Unfortunately those of us that fly (especially regularly and long-distances) have much higher footprints, and therefore contribute more to global warming.

By jamie andrews, Friday, February 22, 2008
Need for big picture on CO2

Far from pointing the finger at shipping per se, Cheapflights believes that whilst totally accepting the need to address greenhouse gas emissions, picking on aviation with its 3% global CO2 footprint (IPCC) is not the best use of environmentalists' considerable lobbying powers. Like aviation, shipping is not a major global CO2 contributor. The leaked UN report just happened to illustrate aviation's small CO2 contribution world wide. With their major global economic benefits, both industries are in a minor CO2 league compared to energy supply, road transport, housing and industry. To illustrate this on a national level, according to DEFRA's UK stats, in 2006, 40 per cent of carbon dioxide emissions were from the energy supply sector, 22 per cent from road transport, 17 per cent from business and 15 per cent from residential fossil fuel use. World stats follow a similar pattern - especially in China, India and the USA where coal fired electricity generation is powering the two emerging economies huge growth. Cheapflights believe environmentalists should look at the big picture and stop demonising aviation and direct their campaign guns at the major government and industry culprits where the most emissions reductions can be achieved. Obscuring the facts with high profile campaigns against minor contributors to global climate change will not help to slow the greenhouse effect but may in fact help contribute to it. Indeed, reversing climate change is ultimately down to Governments, together with the choices made by the individual.

By John Barrington-Carver, Thursday, February 21, 2008
Response to Comment by Gary

Cheapflights are not disagreeing with the fact that pointing the finger help no-one. Perhaps it appears as though they're pointing the finger at shipping rather than airlines, but this is not my take on it. The way I see it, they're basically speaking out against the fact that the environmental lobby has been pointing fingers at travel all these years instead of doing what you're suggesting, which is to realise that travel is neither the largest contributor to CO2 emissions nor is it the sole contributor. There are several influencers and they might include shipping, but they also include numerous others. Effectively, my understanding of this article is that you're both saying the same thing. Indeed you're absolutely right in saying that governments and individual choices are the real driving force behind reversing climate change, but guilting consumers into cutting back on travel, as the green lobby has been doing, would be unfair as it has many benefits one of them being economic.

By Jason Jenkins, Wednesday, February 20, 2008
What do ship's carry?

I think you might find that a great deal of aviation fuel is derived from crude oil shipped in from the middle east. The bottom line is that reversing climate change is down to Governments together with the choices made by the individual. Pointing the finger will help no-one.

By Gary Phillips, Wednesday, February 20, 2008