Airlines warned slow action on CO2 means people will soon fly less

Europe’s airline industry has been warned that in the absence of concrete and speedy technological progress towards a reduction in CO2 emissions, people might choose to fly less as the impacts of climate change become more apparent. The executive director of the European Climate Foundation, Pete Harrison, said that the framework proposed in the report might be too slow to deliver genuine progress on zero-emissions technologies. A danger exists, therefore, that demand reduction becomes “the real business as usual” for the airline sector, Harrison says. At the same event, however, EasyJet CE Johan Lundgren expressed his belief that the Destination 2050 report outlines an achievable framework in a reasonable timeframe, enabling commercial aviation to deliver its economic and social benefits while having a smaller impact on the environment. In Lundgren’s view, the question of “whether we should fly less” is irrelevant in that context, even though he acknowledges that EasyJet customers recently cited improvements in sustainability as their number-one post-pandemic concern when it comes to air travel. But for Harrison, while the Destination 2050 report shows aviation is talking “more realistically” about what needs to be done in terms of sustainability, he believes “it doesn’t go far enough”.<br/>