Airplane pollution soars with no viable plan to rein them in

Bloomberg

Environmental activists recoil for a reason when the super-rich fly private jets to forums that preach carbon neutrality. Airplane pollution levels really are going through the stratosphere and nobody seems to have a viable plan to rein them in.
While energy generation and agriculture currently dwarf aviation’s 1.3 percent share of
all human-caused greenhouse gases, emissions from air travel are accelerating many times faster. That puts the industry on track to become the single biggest emitter of carbon dioxide within three decades if the predicted cuts in other sectors materialise, data and projections from UN agencies show.
The International Civil Aviation Organization recently moved to address the omission of airlines from the 2015 Paris climate accord by adopting self-policing guidelines that call for offsetting any carbon increases by planting trees or investing in cleaner technologies. Mandating direct cuts was deemed politically infeasible since it would have dented record demand for work and holiday travel, particularly in bustling Asian economies led by China and India.
The problem with such a model, green campaigners and analysts such as Andrew Murphy at Transport & Environment say, is that it’s already been tried and didn’t work. At least three European carriers—Austrian Airlines AG, EasyJet Plc and Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd.—have paid to have forests planted in poor countries far from their home markets
only to see local authorities promptly cut them down.
“Offsetting was plagued by problems from the start and has run out of road as an acceptable climate measure,” Murphy said from Brussels, where his research group is based. “Governments need to recognize this and work on effective solutions like investing in new fuels and ending fuel-tax exemptions.”
A spokesman for ICAO said the carbon-offset plan was a welcome addition to other attempts to cut aviation emissions, adding the world was “decades away” from viable clean flying technologies. “We are all going to have to reduce the extent to which we fly.”
Airplane pollution, which has risen by about two-thirds since 2005, is forecast to jump as much as sevenfold by 2050
as incomes in developing economies advance, making flying more affordable for hundreds of millions if not billions of people, according to the Montreal-based ICAO.