In the past two decades, the international aviation industry has failed to meet all but one of its climate targets.
A report commissioned by the climate charity Possible assessed every target set by the industry since 2000 and found that almost all had been missed, revised or ignored. The charity says the findings undermine the UK government's plan to leave airlines to reduce emissions.
The government's jet-zero strategy is being shown to be implausible by a forensic investigation. How can we expect this industry to reduce emissions when they have never met their previous targets?
It's clear that we need to demand reduction via a frequent flyer levy, which would discourage the frequent flying by a small group of people which makes up the bulk of emissions from planes.
According to the Air Transport Action Group, air travel accounted for 2% of human-produced carbon dioxide emissions in 2019. Possible says that 15% of people take 70% of flights.
The report on air targets was written by researchers from the agency Green Gumption, who looked at climate targets starting and finishing between 2000 and 2021, and assessed progress against some longer-term goals.
They found that targets were difficult to assess due to unclear definitions, opaque monitoring and inconsistent reporting. Even if the targets had been met, the researchers said, many were insufficiently ambitious to reduce aviation's climate impact.
Virgin Atlantic set a target of a 30% reduction in CO 2 per revenue tonne kilometre by 2020, which the company later described as a big target and we are sticking with it. The airline admitted in a report that it had reduced CO2/RTK by only 8% from baseline.
The 2020 annual report did not mention the 2020 target. A new target of 15% reduction in CO2/RTK was announced by the company in the following year.
Climate target setting is a smokescreen for business as usual according to the researchers. The targets appear to function as a tactic for giving an impression of progress and action to address aviation's environmental impacts to the public and policymakers, in order to prevent any policy barriers to ongoing growth in the industry.
It includes a quote from Steve Ridgway, Virgin's chief executive in 2007, who said it was important that the airline industry was seen to do something.
The government's jet-zero strategy is due to be published in July and is expected to defy guidance from the climate change committee that deliberate policies will be needed to manage growth in demand for air travel in order to meet the UK's net-zero goals.
The report ignores the historic investment in technology, fuel and market-based measures which will help us reach jet zero by 2050 without the need for further taxes. The funds will be used to accelerate sustainable aviation fuel and to develop zero-carbon and low-emission aircraft technology.
The Guardian contacted Virgin Atlantic.
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