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November 22nd, 2008
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Sins of emission

Increasing air traffic fuels concerns over airlines' carbon footprint

By Michael Heitmann
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
August 22nd, 2007 issue

VLADIMÍR WEISS/THE PRAGUE POST
Traffic at Ruzyně Airport has more than doubled since 2000, with 12 million travelers expected to pass through its gates this year.
For many Britons, a binge-drinking weekend in Prague is just a ticket away. Thanks to a plethora of cheap flights provided by budget airlines and high domestic prices — the cost of an average pint in the United Kingdom broke the £2.50 (103 Kč/$5) barrier in August — it’s common for the British to jaunt across Europe on short-haul flights.
While many deplore the drunken Brits wandering Prague, criticism has begun to come from a new source: environmental groups who are not amused by the carbon emissions their short- and midrange flights leave in the atmosphere.
Last week some 2,000 anti-climate-change activists set up camp at London’s Heathrow Airport, one of the world’s busiest hubs, to protest the emissions spewed by such flights. Environmentalists also protested the airport’s plan to add a new runway.
Direct flights from Heathrow to Prague, operated by British Airways and Czech Airlines (ČSA), were not affected by the protests, but the demonstrations put into focus the growing toll air travel takes on the environment.
While CO2 emissions in the European Union dropped 3 percent between 1990 and 2002, emissions from aviation increased almost 70 percent, according to EU statistics. Worldwide, air travel is reportedly growing 5 percent each year, meaning the current number of kilometers traveled will triple by 2030.
These heightened concerns come as tourist visits to the Czech Republic are increasingly arriving by air, with traffic more than doubling since 2000. Prague’s Ruzyně Airport expects the number of passengers passing through its terminals to cross the 12 million mark this year.
Visitors should start finding alternate ways of traveling here, said Greenpeace spokesperson Karel Dolejší.
“Tourists should seriously consider taking different means of transportation, for example a bus or a train from Brussels or even Britain,” he said.
However, Ruzyně’s rising passenger numbers should be considered a blessing in disguise when it comes to emissions, said airport spokeswoman Eva Krejčí.
“It’s good news for the environment that the number of passengers is rising faster than the number of actual commercial flights,” she said. This means that airlines are packing more people onto each flight and making more effective use of their seating capacity.
Green options
Travelers concerned about the environmental impact of their flights should begin to change the way they vacation, said Jiří Jeřábek, coordinator of the climate change program at the Center for Transport and Energy, a Czech nonprofit.
“Travel less often but stay for a longer duration,” he said. “Instead of weekend trips to drink cheap alcoholic beverages and go shopping, visitors should choose to stay longer and get to know the local sights and culture.”
For those who don’t have the luxury of extended trips or who look askance at the idea of a 17-hour bus ride from London to Prague, several major European airlines offer ways to counter the emissions released by their flights with carbon-offsetting schemes.
For example, British Airways enables its customers to voluntarily donate to a nonprofit, while easyJet gives an undisclosed amount to United Nations projects.
According to British Airways’ climate-care calculator, offsetting a return flight from Heathrow to Prague costs some 73 Kč ($3.52), money that will be spent on rainforest reforestation in Uganda, energy-efficient lighting in Kazakhstan and human-powered treadle pumps in India, among other projects.
ČSA does not offer the option for purchasing offsets, the company said, though the airline does plan to introduce an emissions calculator later this year; offsets remain a possibility for the future.
While climate change is a global phenomenon, frequent flyers on ČSA may want to offset their emissions closer to home, bets the Dutch company GreenSeat. Their firm allows Czechs to purchase carbon offsets that will go toward restoring severely damaged forest areas in Šumava and Krkonoše national parks.
Under communism, air pollution from nearby coal plants caused acid rain that severely damaged parts of the Krkonoše in north Bohemia; south in the Šumava, bark beetles devastated thousands of hectares of forest during the 1990s. According to GreenSeat, 6,000 hectares (14,826 acres) of these forests have been saved and will continue to absorb carbon dioxide, partly through funds coming from carbon offsetting.
For environmental groups here, airline emissions are a low priority, when so much energy is still provided by coal-fired plants.
“In the Czech context, energy producers still create a lot more emissions than the transportation sector,” said Greenpeace spokesman Karel Dolejší. “The country’s CO2 emissions of 12.5 tons per person are mainly caused by coal plants.”
Trading solution    
The Environment Ministry is currently looking into different ways to offset flights by its own employees, spokesman Jakub Kašpar. But such calculations should not be forced upon individuals. Rather the aviation industry should participate in lowering overall greenhouse gas emissions, the ministry said.
“[That’s why] the Czech Republic supports the EU plan to incorporate airplane emissions into the EU Emissions Trading Scheme,” Kašpar said.
ČSA is getting ready to participate in emissions trading, which is proposed to begin applying to flights within Europe in 2011 and to overseas flights the following year, the company said.
That could have a major domestic impact as the country’s increasingly prosperous residents fly more and more each year. In 2006, the number of flights to foreign destinations rose 18.9 percent, with a further increase of 4.9 percent in the first quarter of 2007.

Michael Heitmann can be reached at mheitmann@praguepost.com


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