The climate apocalypse is coming, faster than we could ever have imagined. While most of us prepare for the oncoming resource wars, readying our respirators and water purifiers and learning to manufacture our own prescriptions in bathtubs, global leaders are trying to turn back the tide — cutting emissions wherever possible in hopes of slowing the death of our world. Well, not cutting military emissions, we need those to solidify global hegemony. Or emissions from power generation, that sounds expensive and hard. Really, they’re just considering cutting off air travel to Australia.
A report from Vice says that, in order to meet international emissions goals for 2030, countries are eyeing restrictions on air travel — specifically, to Australia.
The Vice report details the factors at play in limiting Australian air travel, specifically from Europe or North and South America — continents far from Australia:
Flying from Europe or the Americas to Australia is carbon intensive, so it’s an obvious choice for the chopping block.
This could mean Australia has fewer flight options in future and therefore more expensive tickets.
The Federal Government has been warned by the Australian Airports Association that Australia could be “priced out” of the international aviation network over the next decade when carbon pricing and targets start being implemented.
In a submission to a parliamentary inquiry, the association said: “As Australia is at the edges of the global air network with long distances from Australian airports to major regional and global hubs in Asia, North America and the Middle East, it is essential to ensure Australia remains a viable destination for international migration, tourism and business travel.
“Failure to negotiate an effective and equitable deal for Australia may mean a contraction in Australia’s connectivity to the world.”
But how much CO2 could be cleared from the air if we cut Australia off, leaving Europe, Asia, and the Americas without any chance of future Mighty Car Mods meets? Well, it’s tough to give exact numbers, but a study from 2020 estimated total emissions from the entire Australian airline industry to be approximately 23.8 million tons of CO2 for the year 2019 — pre-Covid, it’s worth noting. That’s less than half of what the U.S. military emits in a typical year, and less than four percent of emissions from Saudi Arabia’s fossil fuel industry.
Compared to the big emitters, Australian air travel is a drop in the climate bucket. But cutting flights is easy, and tackling the big problems — like military spending and energy generation — is a lot harder to sell to lawmakers and shareholders.