Taking Responsibility for Aviation

In May the Global Humanitarian Forum estimated that climate change accounts for over 300,000 deaths each year, the equivalent of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami every year. Climate change impacts most on the world�s poor in the developed and the developing world. A report commissioned by University College London and the Lancet has concluded that climate change is the biggest global health threat of the 21st century and that the poor will be the first affected.

The tourism industry in the UK and around the world provides life enhancing and life changing experiences to billions of people each year and brings economic development to countries and regions often with no other viable means of engaging in the world economy. The tourism industry has begun to take responsibility and is making real efforts to improve its sustainability. The airline industry is still in denial.

The airline industry secured its exclusion from the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. Last week Willie Walsh and IATA, on behalf of the global airline industry, announced that they now favour a �global sectoral approach.� They proposed some vague targets and then asked for more time, until November 2010 to come up with a framework and a delivery mechanism. If this were accepted aviation would again secure an exemption. The sector�s approach has been denial followed by procrastination. The airline industry has failed to exercise responsibility.  Through the Copenhagen process and the International Civil Aviation Organisation the British government could, and should, take responsibility.

A few individual airlines have exercised responsibility, reducing their fuel consumption and consequently their carbon emissions, a trend reinforced and accelerated by the spike in the costs of jet fuel last year, no longer a cause of change. While some airlines have taken responsibility, the industry has preferred to isolate itself from any pressure to improve its performance by placing the responsibility on the consumer to purchase carbon off sets, an approach recently criticised by Friends of the Earth as a �dangerous distraction�. Emissions trading is similar to off-setting, it would allow business as usual for the airlines unless a cap significantly below current emission levels was imposed. That is unlikely. It will not generate the funds required for adaptation.

The challenge is to find and deploy a mechanism which can be introduced globally, which provides a level playing field and which is cheap and efficient to operate, which places effective pressure on the airlines to reduce their carbon emissions by flying more fuel efficient planes, improving their operating procedures and load factors; and which meets the full costs of the floods, famine and disease caused by their carbon pollution and ensures, through hypothecation, that those affected are helped to adapt. This proposal would hypothecate tax raised from those able to afford to fly, whether in the developed or developing world, for business or for leisure, to assist those bearing the brunt of climate change. The polluter, the airline, pays. Those who take responsibility and achieve greater efficiencies, reducing their carbon pollution, would pay less; such a tax would push the airlines to move out of denial, and to reduce their emissions. No passenger tax can achieve that.

It is the relatively wealthy in the developed and developing worlds that fly; their flying imposes costs on others. Those costs should be met in full by those who fly and the proceeds should be hypothecated to establish a Global Adaptation Fund to benefit those areas of the world most seriously impacted by climate change.

A global tax on aviation based on fuel purchases and the DEFRA shadow price of carbon at �27 per ton could raise �16bn for adaptation and this would transfer wealth from the relative wealthy to the poor affected by climate change. This would cost an average of between �7 and �8 extra per passenger per flight and if airlines were taxed on the basis of fuel consumed at the end of a quarterly accounting period they would be incentivised to increase their fuel efficiency per revenue passenger mile.

Consumers have rightly been wary of carbon offsetting. However, when offered the opportunity to choose a carbon efficient airline a commercial carbon friendly flight calculator which enables them to identify the greenest and cheapest 57% of them  chose that option, paying an average premium of 19% over the cheapest flights.

Consumers have demonstrated that they are willing to take responsibility. The British Government could provide international leadership, announce a new strategy to raise significant funds for adaptation and work through the International Civil Aviation Organisation to have a proposal on the table for Copenhagen.  

Professor Harold Goodwin
International Centre for Responsible Tourism
Leeds Metropolitan University

Today was the judging for the Virgin Holidays Responsible Tourism Awards which will be announced at World Travel Market on World Responsible Tourism Day on November 11th and in the Saturday Telegraph. Chairing the judging is a privilege, coming to a consensus amongst a knowledgeable and responsible group of individuals determined to make the best possible decisions. 

There was the usual robust debate about each of the categories. It is an exhaustive process. There were 1,662 nominations for 580 individual organisations for 13 categories. Competition is stiff particularly so this year in the low carbon and technology, marine and poverty reduction categories. Masters and PhD students from the International Centre for Responsible Tourism at Leeds Metropolitan University work through the nominations apply their knowledge and do some web searching. From this the long list is created and the questionnaires are sent out. The judges then meet in pairs and come to an agreement about a short list for each category which they bring to the judging day and the debate begins, By the end of the day we had 13 category winners, a global winner and a score of highly commendeds.

It is not easy to survive the scrutiny of the judges and this year the competition in most categories has been much tougher. The Responsible Tourism agenda moves on  there are always new approaches and new standards are set every year. You�ll have to wait until WTM World Responsible Tourism Day for the results � there is plenty to celebrate this year.

CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale, has been one of Britain�s most successful consumer movements rescuing British beer from what seemed, in early 1970�s, like certain oblivion as the onslaught of keg beer hit British pubs. Real beer is still threatened now by the closure of traditional pubs unable to compete against cheap booze in super markets and the social consequences of the smoking restrictions. But is still with us and the diversity is greater than ever.

At the Ludlow and Marches Food and Drink Festival, a festival with a strong real ale tradition and a beer trail, a new organisation was launched in September,  Taste Real Food. www.tasterealfood.com Its aims are very similar to those of CAMRA, to inspire and educate about real food, to arrange visits to local real food producers, to organise tastings and seasonal meals and to campaign to draw attention to special local foods and drinks, rare breeds and the diversity of our fruit and vegetables. We value and celebrate diversity and support the rich variety offered by local and regional food producers. Like CAMRA Taste Real Food welcomes �everybody from all walks of life.�

There were enough people there from Faversham in Ludlow for the festival to decide to launch a Faversham Branch of Taste Real Food to celebrate our rich local food heritage and to raise awareness of the many small local food producers whose craft � growing, catching, smoking, cooking, brewing, butchering and filleting � contributes so much to the quality of our lives.

Taste Real Food is an inclusive organisation and one not burdened by the connotations of Slow Food, with the inevitable echo in the UK of slow, meaning poor, service. One of the things we�ve learnt from the Responsible Tourism Movement is the importance of organisations reflecting the local culture and local priorities. Taste Real Food comes with the same predisposition, genuinely local, reflecting local concerns and connecting with CAMRA a movement which brings together all those with a love of real ale and the traditional British pub with all its regional peculiarities.

One of the most successful traditions of the Ludlow and Marches Food and Drink Festival is the Sausage Trail � adults and children judging the offerings of local butchers, everyone can participate and all kinds of people do, 4,000 every year. The conversation in the queues is half the fun.  In Ludlow in one of the local offices this year I heard a local man describe the sausage trail as �the best two hours� of his year; there is a real sense of community that comes from participating. That is the inclusive spirit of Taste Real Food. 

Join at www.tasterealfood.com