There is no easy way out of “flight shame.”
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg’s warnings against air travel seem to be having an effect, particularly in Europe. In a recent survey by Swiss bank UBS, 21% of respondents in the U.S., the U.K., Germany and France said they had cut back on flying this year. Perhaps more importantly, lawmakers are listening: Starting next year, France will impose a tax on outbound flight tickets.
Airlines are looking for ways to clean themselves up. Last week, U.K. budget carrier EasyJet said it would become the first major airline to operate with net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by buying carbon offsets. British Airways -owner IAG recently said it was on its own path toward carbon neutrality in 2050.
Even in the U.S., where carriers are lagging behind, Delta Air Lines has begun using biofuels in an attempt to inch closer to the International Air Transport Association’s goal of halving emissions from their 2005 level by 2050.
But there is a catch: The industry’s plans are ultimately reliant on spending money to offset emissions elsewhere. This isn’t likely to appease governments or consumers for long.
To be sure, the aviation industry generates only 2.4% of global fossil-fuel emissions, the International Council on Clean Transportation estimates, compared with 16% for road transport.
Unlike the car industry, where fuel efficiency is a legal requirement but often a secondary concern for consumers, airlines need to keep slashing energy costs to be able to lower prices and compete with other carriers. Planes made by Boeing and Airbus aren’t faster than they were in the 1970s, but they are 70% more efficient per passenger and mile. Even long-haul flights now beat cars, official data shows.
The issue is that, even if each plane is more efficient, fliers have multiplied in recent years—and will double again by 2037, IATA forecasts. Emissions from commercial flights surged 30% between 2013 and 2018.
Cars have a clear technological endgame in sight: electric vehicles. Yet a realistic alternative to fuel-powered jets still lies in the distant future.
Unlike fuel tanks, batteries don’t get lighter with distance, which limits range. With state-of-the-art batteries used to power a Tesla Model 3 car, an all-electric plane would only fly a paltry 250 nautical miles, Bernstein Research suggests. Even under the very optimistic assumption that batteries improve their efficiency at three times the current rate, it would take until the 2100s to get to the 3,000 nautical-mile range of a narrow-body commercial plane.
Carriers still hope that hybrid jets will be an option in the next generation of airliners, scheduled for the 2030s. Boeing and JetBlue have poured money into Zunum Aero, a Kirkland, Wash.,-based startup that is aiming to build a 50-seat hybrid jet by 2030. Airbus, Rolls-Royce and Siemens are developing the E-Fan X, a similar aircraft that could start test flights in 2021.
But these are projects for regional aircraft: Even if battery energy density quadrupled in the near term—an unlikely scenario—a hybrid plane would only make sense for flights below 2,000 nautical miles, Bernstein’s estimates show. The planes under development wouldn’t replace the Boeing 737 and Airbus A320 jets that make up the lion’s share of current fleets.
As a result, nations’ efforts to improve the carbon footprint of aviation mostly boil down to an underwhelming United Nations accord signed by countries last year, initially on a voluntary basis. Starting in 2021, signatories will compel carriers to match any emissions on international flights above 2020 levels by paying for carbon offsets.
These can be green projects—like reforestation—or biofuels which, in theory, also recapture all the carbon that was emitted. Yet offsets are increasingly under fire: A recent study by the Stockholm Environment Institute found that three-quarters of such projects financed until 2015 would have happened anyway. Projects often take place in developing nations, where it is harder to tell whether the promised carbon-capture benefits do indeed take place.
When it comes to IAG’s 2050 zero-emissions target, 43% of the emissions reduction would be from carbon offsets, with another 18% relying on sustainable fuels—including an uncertain project to create fuel from waste across sites in the U.K. Likewise, EasyJet’s 2020 commitment will be achieved by paying £25 million in offsets, or 6% of expected profits.
Both carriers have done well to lead on the topic, but no amount of offsetting can save EasyJet from criticisms of hypocrisy for its new U.K. route between Edinburgh and Birmingham, for example. The cities are only 4½ hours apart by train.
There is no easy way to gauge the environmental risks associated with specific carriers. Legacy airlines rank better on Sustainalytics, a popular sustainability benchmark, because they tend to have more concrete emission plans and their cost structures are less vulnerable to labor strikes. But much of this is based on carbon offsets or is unrelated to the environment, meaning that the scores may underestimate any regulatory backlash. By contrast, budget carriers are much more fuel efficient, because they pack more customers into less space, but their networks can also be more easily capped in favor of trains.
Ultimately, the carbon bill will likely be higher than markets currently expect. Heavy environmental taxation and restrictions on shorter flights aren’t the far-fetched scenarios they used to be.
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Write to Jon Sindreu at jon.sindreu@wsj.com
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