Aircraft Responsible For 2.5% of Global Carbon Dioxide Emissions

jIyajbe writes: Christie Aschwanden of FiveThirtyEight.com reports that the world's aircraft are responsible for roughly 2.5% of global carbon dioxide emissions. The industry as a whole puts out more CO2 than most countries, and emissions are expected to grow significantly over the next few decades. She writes, "Planes don't just release carbon dioxide, they also emit nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides and black carbon, as well as water vapor that can form heat-trapping clouds... These emissions take place in the upper troposphere, where their effects are magnified. When this so-called radiative forcing effect is taken into account, aviation emissions produce about 2.7 times the warming effects of CO2 alone." A related article breaks down how much each airline pollutes, relative to the others. Alaska, Spirit, and Frontier are tied for the highest fuel efficiency score, while American beats out Allegiant Air and Sun Country for the lowest spot.

Comments

Re:Don't mess with my jetset lifestyle

[Ichijo]

Today's newest, most fuel-efficient jetliners achieve about 100 passenger-miles per gallon, while electric bullet trains run at the equivalent of 300-500 passenger-miles per gallon. So air travel has a long way to go before it's as fuel-efficient as ground transportation.

Also, bullet trains are faster, curb-to-curb, for distances up to about 400-500 miles. And you can add intermediate stops at a cost of only a few minutes each.

So there's great potential to reduce air travel at no cost to our standard of living.