When a friend casually asks why some politicians want to tax aviation

“Domestic aviation is not the biggest problem, the problem is global growth. 80 % of aviation is 1500+ km. (A certain Nordic airline) will have some electric planes on short routes in ten years to my knowledge.

The reason why aviation is being discussed is the cumulative growth out to 2050: it will produce a massive additional amount of carbon dioxide emissions per year, while e.g. the European Union should be completely decarbonized by then and Nordics certainly earlier.

There are also other problems with jet turbine emissions, namely the high-altitude burning and certain other effects which make the process twice to three times as harmful to the climate as the mere carbon dioxide (2 % of global carbon dioxide emissions would be the size of Germany — Japan). The industry plan is to “off-set the growth” with CDM credits which quite frankly do not produce emissions reductions, some >90 % are total junk. E.g. Brazil has those as stranded assets and they want to get them moving.

Now, the Paris Agreement and consensus science (IPCC reports like the 1.5°C one which is now nearly impossible to accomplish) require every nation to be at net-zero emissions as the scientific framing of mitigation. Net-zero means that there cannot be any carbon dioxide emissions which a certain country…