scottishpoet

There are already various taxes on air travel.

I do not believe that introducing yet another travel tax would reduce travel enough in the long term to have a significant impact on climate change.

I do not doubt climate change is occurring. Climate change has always occurred. The UK was once covered in ice.

fotographer

I think we all know, that with any tax, on travel/FF etc will never help with whatever it is intended too. The money will go somewhere or to someone, and we has tax payers will never know how it was spent.
If I had only known about carbon footprint.... heck I would not need to work anymore...ever

alvinlwh

Princess Meghan and Prince Harry.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-new...trips-19428650

"The Duke, outspoken on our duty to cut carbon emissions, was recently criticised after being pictured with wife Meghan and son Archie boarding a private jet to Nice"

RGS5526

The falling birth rate in in the UK (and elsewhere in Western Europe) is probably going to make a much greater contribution to the preferred direction of climate change than tax initiatives. Fewer people means a reduced demand for transport of all kinds, not just air transport.

Air transport offers a visible target for anti-warming activists. A better target for their enthusiasm might be the destruction of the natural environment in order to increase production of soya and palm oil. Taxes on soya and palm oil, and products containing them, could have a much greater, and fairer, impact on climate change than taxes on frequent fliers. And whilst on this hobby horse, why not introduce punitive taxes on long-haul imports of such luxuries as cut flowers?

T8191

Any Government, of any persuasion and in any country, can of course slap a tax on anything according to the needs of the moment and the ‘current fashion’ as expressed by activists. We, the Public, are as ever victims of policies created by those who shout the loudest, whilst the money raised tends to disappear into the capacious maw of the Treasury to be used at will.

I have yet to be persuaded that any of these ‘dribble taxes’ actually achieve what was intended.

alex67500

I believe this is correct, but much more controversial. The earth was sustainable at around a population of 4bn (probably a bit less if all countries make it out of poverty). We're getting close to double that figure. There are no acceptable solutions to the cause of this problem, be it in a political or humane sense.

zebranz

[QUOTE=RGS5526;31557725]The falling birth rate in in the UK (and elsewhere in Western Europe) is probably going to make a much greater contribution to the preferred direction of climate change than tax initiatives. Fewer people means a reduced demand for transport of all kinds, not just air transport.


I never thought getting "snipped" was a climate change contribution- maybe I can apply for a tax write off!

alvinlwh

You are right, the current fires from slash and burn in Indonesia is pumping 1gt of CO2 into the air, just 4 years after the last fire.

Ancient Observer

More taxes on Aviation might be a good thing. They might not.
As ever with taxes, the impact needs to be examined.
A modest or even moderate tax would not impact the business traveler. It would just make travel that bit more expensive, and make customers and corporates insist on cheaper travel.
However, these taxes would impact those who have to save for their one or two flights each year. So maybe not impacting too much on the very poor, who don't fly, but severely impacting "Hard working families".

Not a great idea for the politicians.

bisonrav

I was talking to my Malaysian father-in-law about this last month. He made the point that the people involved are extremely poor, and don't see why they should live in penury to assuage the consciences of western liberals living in massively more historically polluting societies. And went on to say that if the rain forests are the lungs of the world and producing the oxygen, then maybe the West would like to start paying for it rather than lecturing people trying to improve their lot in life so as to have some degree of comfort. Very difficult to argue with that.

There are a ton of reasons why Thunberg is wrong in analysis and proposed solution (essentially destroy the current basis of the economy and live hand to mouth, there won't be business travel because there won't be any business). Hans Rosling was extremely good at debunking the base claims, and it's well worth seeking his lectures out on Youtube. But the activists are extremely effective at conjuring up emotive images - the idea that the Amazon is burning (it isn't) or that the icecaps are disappearing (they aren't) stoke apocalyptic fears. Not the least interesting part of this is the comparison with pretty much any apocalyptic cult there has ever been - threats of extinction if we do not follow the way of the enlightened and make sacrifices to return to a pure form of existence. We even have a virgin prophet, Joan of Arc style. And the dismissal of reasoned arguments by turning the attention onto the prophet ("why do you have a problem with Greta?") rather than the substance of the claims. There are also rather nasty eugenicist strains in much of the rhetoric.

Malthusianism has a long and remarkably dreadful record of similar predictions. The reason is that every new human is not (as Thunberg would suggest) a burden on the world, but net added value, and humans solve problems.

None of this is to say that we're doing enough, and possibly the privilege of being able to travel is running its course. But the dialogue is becoming hysterical now, and that will create bad decisions.

TheJayHatch

This discussion has varied views, but many seem to fail to extrapolate the inevitable lifestyle of a frequent flyer - not just the fuel burnt but also the needless trinkets and disposable waste - with other contributing factors such as demand for palm oil. They are all inextricably linked, and to suggest the latter bears no relation to the former is, to many of us anyway, incredible self-denial.

The truth is that we enjoy our lives of luxury - which is what they are, whether we travel for business or for leisure - and will naturally deny anything that might cause us to infer our role in their eventual curtailment. Its the human condition.

Please don't get me wrong: I was sipping Salon in JAL F just 24h ago. But long flights do create the opportunity for reflection, and mine (undoubtedly RWC hangover guilt induced) were that whilst we claim we need to make those 12 TATLs for work or have a right to travel leisure as a BAEC Gold that, in reality, we are likely in denial over the damage in one sense or another we are causing, and if greater protest and awareness causes us to think differently just once in every other decision then we have at least made some impact.

Whether a tax of this sort makes a difference, that's for others to opine. But as the younger generation grow to be our lords and masters, we should expect more, not less, of this, and its a sobering fact that we will be brought into line either willingly or otherwise at some point in the not too distant future.

T8191

What a VERY good post, bisonrav ^

SWISSBOBBY

Aviation is always the soft target for all of this... estimates I have seen (depending on data sources vary from 2% of CO2 emissions to 10% )

so reduce flights by 50% and you will only remove 1-5% of CO2 emissions

Produce electricity and heating accounts from about 30% of CO2

Building with concrete produces more CO2 than airlines (one report I saw suggested 25%)!!!

No problem to pay but it goes to mitigate the effects of the CO2 I am responsible for, but it should not be filling the coffers of any government.

PUCCI GALORE

Oh well said Sir. She rose without trace and she stays afloat with the oxygen of publicity. In no time, she will be someone who one rainy afternoon one looks up on Wikipedia to see what actually happened to her. I cannot but think of Joan of Arc when I see her - and we all know what happened to her. That said (and this is really OMNI territory) it is her generations, Uncle T, who will really reap the consequences. I actually agree with a lot of what she says, or that someone has put into her head, I just am not impressed with the theatrics.

However, I find it a bit rich that on a Chatboard dedicated to the best use of points and flying literally to make it to a Gold or Silver card so that we can sit in a Lounge or be first on an aeroplane, anyone is seriously concerned about their carbon anything. Concerned maybe, but doing something like avoiding flying, that I do doubt.

Will I fly if there is a FF tax - of course I will - as you know and I know that this tax like the APD will be treated like regular taxes and lost in the wash somewhere. The USA will never impose it. If the UK should, no doubt Inverness will be spared and how many travel to Inverness to avoid that.

Interesting though this is - I'm uncertain as to its particular relevance to British Airways.

Dicksbits

This is exactly it: The RICH won't care, and won't alter their travel habits. The first lever the politician reaches for is tax, in already heavily taxed country. It never works: people will still fly. Travel: the genie is out of the bottle.