As much as I don’t want it to be, I know it’s true.
The U.N. International Panel on Climate Change says perennial improvements have made planes 70 percent more efficient than they were 40 years ago. An additional 40 to 50 percent improvement can be expected in the next three decades, the panel says.
The problem, climate experts say, is that current projections indicate air travel will grow 400 percent in the same period.
“Efficiency is only set to improve at 1 or 2 percent per year at best, while the number of passenger [miles] is growing at 5 or 6 percent,” said Peter Lockley, head of policy development at the Aviation Environment Federation, a British think tank. “So emissions are going up steadily in the gap between the two.”
There are alternative fuels. Concepts such as hydrogen-powered aircraft are considered to be decades away. But serious work is being done on biofuels as an alternative to kerosene in aircraft. Entrepreneur Richard Branson promised last year to funnel all profits from his air and rail companies into a new business, Virgin Fuels, that would pay for development of biofuels.
Oh good lord, not biofuels - they create way more problems than they solve. And carbon trading is just a joke.
Oh, Scotty, we need you now more than ever.
