Monday 10 October 2016

Airlines pledge to cough up for cross-border flight pollution


Full article on economist.com

Civil aviation accounts for perhaps only 2% of man-made carbon emissions today. Add in other pollutants, such as nitrous oxide, and its contribution to climate change might be twice that figure. That may not seem much, but the sector is expanding rapidly. Since the 1970s, global air traffic has doubled in size about every 15 years. Rising prosperity in developing countries and massive backlogs of aircraft orders mean that the industry's contrails will continue growing for decades. Without regulation, the world’s airlines will quickly choke its skies...