Paying more for air travel eases guilt, but not emissions.
In 2002, responsible travel became one of the first travel companies to offer customers
the option of buying so-called carbon offsets to counter the planet warming emissions generated
by their airline flights.
But last month, responsible travel cancelled the program, saying that while it might help
travelers feel virtuous, it was not helping to reduce global emissions whatsoever.
In fact, company officials said it might even encourage some people to travel or consume
more.
The carbon offset has become this magic pill, the kind of get out of jail free card.
Justin Francis, the Managing Director of Responsible Travel, one of the world's largest
green travel companies to embrace environmental sustainability, said in an interview.
It sounds good to the customer, or consumer, who says, it's like only $4, and I'm
carbon neutral, so I can fly all I want.
That's simply not the way it works.
Offsets, he argues, are distracting people by making more significant behavioral changes
like flying less.
In theory, the purchase of carbon offsets is supposed to cancel out the emissions generated
by activities, like flying or heating office buildings, by supposedly directing money to
programs that reduce emissions elsewhere, like tree planting in Africa, or a hydro-power
project in Brazil.
An airline passenger might volunteer to pay $5 to $40 to offset his flight, with the price
linked to distance.
So played a growing role in the greening of travel because carbon dioxide emissions from
airplanes are growing so quickly, and there is currently no technological fix that would
drastically lower them.
So in other words, air travel produces a lot of carbon dioxide emissions per person.
In the United States, dozens of hotels and airlines have embraced its programs in the
last year or two.
United Airlines became the latest American airline to offer one this summer.
Globally, offset programs have grown into a multi-million dollar industry, but it has
proved very difficult to monitor or quantify the emissions-reducing potential of the thousands
of greening projects financed by customers' payments and there are no industry-wide standards.
Responsible travel is not the only company or organization that has changed its mind
about the usefulness of offsets.
Yahoo!
and the United States House of Representatives both ended trial offset purchase programs
this year, deciding or concluding that the money was better spent on improving their
building's energy efficiency.
Some of the world's leading experts on the emissions issue have reviewed and rejected
purchasing offsets for air travel.
We're always looking at it, but so far I've decided not to do it, says Paul Dickinson,
chief executive of the Carbon Disclosure Project, a vast non-profit consortium of companies
that have pledged to report and reduce their emissions.
For one thing, he said, offsetting the real emissions of a flight from London to New York
would probably require an extra fee of some $200 to $300, far above what any airline is
now charging.
Some experts say that emissions from airline travel are simply so large that it may be
impossible to offset them.
In other words, one flight produces tons and tons of carbon dioxide per flight.
Buying offsets is a nice idea, just like giving money to a soup kitchen is a nice idea, but
that doesn't end world hunger, said a staff scientist for the Stockholm Environment Institute.
Buying offsets won't solve the problem because flying around the way we do is simply unsustainable.
A recent study in Britain concluded that one flight from London to Los Angeles produced
more carbon dioxide per person than the average British commuter produces in a year by traveling
by train, subway, or car.
Again, the recent study in Britain has concluded that one flight from London to Los Angeles
produced more carbon dioxide per person than the average British commuter produces in a
year by traveling by train, subway, or car.
Of course, airlines defend offsets, even while acknowledging that some projects have not
lived up to their promises.
For example, mango trees that were planted in India to offset a concert tour for the
band Coldplay were found to have died just a few years later.
EasyJet, one of Europe's largest low-cost airlines, did not offer offsets until 2007,
late for a European carrier, because it was trying to figure out how to ensure the money
went to the right places, said a spokesman.
Passenger offsets purport to cancel out carbon dioxide emissions, ton for ton, through investments
in green projects, but many critics say there is no transparency about how companies measure
whether that happens or not.
For example, many airlines offer investments in tree planting projects because trees absorb
carbon dioxide, but experts say it takes decades for trees to start fully absorbing the gas,
making them a very questionable offset for airplanes, which emit a lot of carbon dioxide.
For Mr. Francis of Responsible Travel, the final straw came when he noticed that carbon
offsets were being offered by private jet companies and helicopter tour operators, which
generate very high emissions per passenger.
The message was, don't worry, you can offset the emissions, he said, but you don't really
need to see Sydney from the air, do you, and you can travel in a commercial airliner.
Responsible Travel had bought its offsets from one of the best-known offset companies,
Climate Care, which was purchased last year by J.P. Morgan, while acknowledging that improved
universal standards for personal airline offsets are needed.
Richard Folland, a climate change and energy advisor to J.P. Morgan, said the offset concept
plays an important role in helping to direct money to otherwise unaffordable environmental
projects in poorer countries.
The primary goal is to reduce emissions, but offsets are helpful in managing the costs
he said, adding there has to be a balanced struck.
Mr. Dickinson of the Nonprofit Carbon Disclosure Project said that, rather than buying offsets,
he had sharply scaled back on flying and was instead taking trains or conducting meetings
by phone or teleconference.
He said that if he had owned an airline, he would now be diversifying into other modes
of transport, referring to the recent purchase of a railroad by the investor Warren Buffett,
he said.
What does it tell you that the world's most successful investor is investing in trains
and not planes?
Well, that says that for sure, and yes, airline travel puts out an enormous, puts out a huge
amount of carbon dioxide per flight per person.
It's not really an efficient way to travel, although it may be the quickest or the fastest,
and it adds it to the atmosphere, and the carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for
a very long time, building up over time, and yes, causing worldwide climate change.
Again, these are more signs, and these are the end times transition days.
Everything is happening, day by day, all around the world.
