Delta boss says climate change means flying will cost more

The boss of the world's second biggest airline has said that tackling climate change will make flying more expensive. "Over time, it's going to cost us all more, but it's the right approach that we must take," Delta CE Ed Bastian told the BBC. Aviation is responsible for about 2.5% of the carbon emissions that are warming the planet, according to the International Energy Agency. Critics argue the best way to reduce them is by flying less. Delta says that after spending $30m a year on carbon-offsetting it has been carbon neutral since March 2020. It has also pledged to spend $1b over the next decade to cancel out all the emissions it creates. More fuel-efficient planes, sustainable aviation fuels and removing carbon from the atmosphere are some of the ways it hopes to achieve this. Reducing carbon emissions is crucial if the world is to limit global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels as agreed in Paris in 2015, and has been the focus of the COP26 climate change summit in Glasgow. Andreas Schafer, professor of energy and transport at University College London, says it will "cost trillions rather than billions of dollars" to move the global aviation sector to net zero carbon emissions. Preliminary results from his team's research suggest airfares would need to increase by 10%-20% to cover the costs. "In the short-term, government support will be needed with those costs as decarbonising aviation will be extremely challenging, and current efforts will need to be scaled up dramatically", says Prof Schafer. Bastian concedes it is an ambitious goal that his airline won't be able to achieve alone. "It's the biggest long-term challenge this industry faces," he said. "We're in an industry that's classified as hard to decarbonise because we don't have the bio-fuels or the sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs) en masse yet that we're going to need."<br/>