May

23

Are airlines really at the top of the list?

May 23, 2007 | 1 Comment | Joshua Gans

The Australia Institute has a new study (I haven’t read it because it is not freely available; what do you know, demand curves slope downward). It wants an immediate $30 greenhouse gas charge on airline tickets to reduce demand for airline travel and promote innovation in aviation. But the odd thing is the reason for all this: apparently if Australia reduces its greenhouse emissions by 60 percent, airline emissions will comprise the bulk (maybe 51%) of what’s left. My reaction to this was: so what?

Surely the issue are total emissions not relative emissions. And it is really critical how we tackle this. Which planes emit more? Which routes are problematic? Is there any evidence that modest ticket rises will reduce demand? Why not a higher rate for business travel? And if it turns out that the easiest place to reduce emissions is elsewhere then so be it.

If anyone was thinking in a moderately sensible way about this, we would target simple business travel — flying to go to meetings. This would necessitate a large levy for same day travel that is claimed as a tax deduction somewhere. Anything to encourage the use of information technologies (maybe Telstra are right) as a substitute for airline travel.


Comments

One Response to “Are airlines really at the top of the list?”

  1. Tax business travel to reduce emissions « They didn’t get this username before me! on May 23rd, 2007 9:55 pm

    [...] pcpcword 21:54 Today Joshua Gans discusses emissions from airlines, and how adding a $30 levy to all tickets is hardly reasonable. [...]