Credit: Song_about_summer/Shutterstock
Credit: Song_about_summer/Shutterstock
 

The article is published on July 27 2020 and written by Avit K Bhowmik , Assistant Professor, Karlstad University, and Research fellow in Planetary Boundaries Research Network, Stockholm University.

He writes: “Civil aviation – which includes all passenger and cargo flights – accounts for 2% of annual global greenhouse gas emissions. This might look pretty small, but this comes from only the 5% of the global population who can afford to fly. A transatlantic round trip can emit greenhouse gases equivalent to 1.6 tonnes of CO₂ per person. In other words, someone’s entire carbon allowance for the year.

As lockdowns are loosened, emissions are rebounding from many sectors. Aviation may follow the same path. After all, we live in a hyperconnected world and people still want to explore it, travelling as fast and as cheaply as possible, forgetting the cost this incurs to the climate.

But recent history suggests our attitudes may be more malleable. The Swedish flygskam (meaning, “flight shame”) movement of 2018 was led by a small group of celebrities, including Olympic winter gold medallist Bjorn Ferry and the musician Malena Ernman, who also happens to be climate activist Greta Thunnberg’s mother.

Read the article published in The Conversation.

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