More planes = more emissions, part 2

The aviation industry loves to crow about its efficiency gains while steadily increasing the number of planes in the sky. They call this sustainable aviation and pretend that it's tackling their emissions. We're sceptical, and according to Australian scientists at the Centre for Climate Law and Policy, we are right: any efficiency gains are being outpaced by the increase in planes and flights.

According to the Centre's Associate Director, Andrew Macintosh, "at the moment the gains [the aviation industry's] making through technological advances and improvements in the way they operate the aircraft are being offset by the massive increase in the size of the market." In other words, small gains in efficiency are wiped out by everyone flying more, which shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone with half a brain.

Macintosh also expressed doubt that the industry could keep growing without massively increasing its emmissions and that this would make it almost impossible to hit climate change targets. This echoes the concerns raised by the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research who found that if aviation continued to grow, it would not only wipe out its own efficiency gains, but could end up accounting for our entire CO2 allowance under the Kyoto Protocol. Sustainable growth, eh?