Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said that worldwide greenhouse gas emissions needed to peak by 2015 to keep the expected temperature rise this century to 2C, defined by scientists as dangerous.
Unrestrained growth could see a 6C rise by 2100.
Although aviation contributes only about two per cent of global emissions, campaigners have highlighted the industry’s environmental impact because it is the fastest-growing source of greenhouse gases, and there is no technological fix.
New official forecasts to be published at an aviation conference in Barcelona next month predict international carbon dioxide pollution from aircraft will reach 1.2 billion to 1.4 billion tonnes by 2025, up from 610 million tonnes now.
Aircraft emissions have a greater warming effect because they are released at altitude. Experts claim this exaggerated impact means that one tonne of carbon dioxide released from an aircraft does the same damage as 2.5 tonnes emitted from cars or power stations. And because most aviation is classed as an international activity, its emissions are rarely included in official figures and they are excluded from the Kyoto Protocol, the international treaty to regulate greenhouse gases.
