If there’s one thing that we know about climate policy in its current form (apart from the fact that it is unlikely to make a great deal of difference to any effects that the climate may have), it is that it will make quite a lot of what we take for granted much more expensive.
The other day, I quoted a tweet by Christine Lagarde, the president of the European Central Bank, which included these words:
While decarbonisation in the energy sector can cause rising prices in the medium term, it can lower inflation in the long term. That’s why green innovation is key.
It’s not often that I write something complementary about Ms. Lagarde, a second-rate politician now transformed into a fifth-rate central banker, but she does merit a few points for (more or less) admitting that decarbonization will lead to rising prices in “the medium term,” which really means from now until who knows when.
So, it’s worth keeping an eye on where those price rises will be hitting. One area will be flying. Airline tickets are already more expensive, partly on the back of higher fuel costs. These have risen sharply for any number of reasons, of which the energy transition away from greenhouse gases has only been a relatively small (direct) contributor.
So far.
We’re probably going to have to fly less. And when we do board a plane, it’s going to cost more — a lot more, one way or another.
Those are the conclusions of a new report by the nonprofit International Council on Clean Transportation, which analyzed how the airline industry could cut emissions in line with global climate goals. People will “still be able to fly in the future and do so with a clean conscience,” said Brandon Graver, a co-author of the study and a senior aviation researcher at the organization. “But it’s going to be expensive, and we need to have discussions on who is going to pay for that.”
I think we know.
Bloomberg:
The airline industry’s main lobby group set a net zero emissions target for 2050 last year, and the United Nations agency overseeing the industry will set its own climate goal later this year.
That this lobby group (IATA) should do something that is against both the interests of its industry and its clients is yet another sign of the harnessed capitalism that is a feature of the corporatist regime that is now under construction.
Bloomberg:
Aligning aviation with the Paris goals “is possible but will require significant ambition and investment,” warned the new report. In every scenario, the largest pollution reductions come from the same source: sustainable aviation fuels, or SAFs. The most ambitious path calls for alternative fuels to comprise 17% of aircraft fuel use by 2030 and 100% by 2050. In a more moderate scenario, SAFs only made up 3% of aircraft fuels by 2030 and 50% of fuel use by mid-century.
Sustainable fuels are currently a lot more expensive than traditional jet fuel. The report suggests that government policies could encourage the use of SAF by offering tax breaks and other incentives while also making fossil fuels more expensive. Either way, the airlines will likely pass at least some of the higher costs on to passengers and customers.
Compared to a status-quo, do-nothing pathway, the most aggressive carbon-reduction scenario leads to a 7% drop in passenger traffic and a 22% increase in ticket prices by 2050, driven by a 70% rise in fuel costs.
And if you think that that rise (expressed presumably in constant dollars) will “only” be 22 percent, well . . .