is your car any better than the Airbus A380?

One of the challenges in meeting climate change objectives will be making changes without drastic economic cost. There will no doubt be some cost, and the longer we wait the worse it will be; but the Stern Report of October 2006 figured that meaningful change could be made at a cost of 1% of global GDP.

Without wanting to sound like the airline industry is a paragon of carbon virtuosity, one of the points to be made is that while aviation accounts for 2% of global CO2 emissions, it contributes 8% of the world's gross domestic product, according to an article in Engineering News (June 27 - July 3, 2008 edition). So while the impacts of high levels of air traffic growth will need to be mitigated, my question is: wouldn't it make sense to focus most strongly on industries that provide less economic benefit with higher carbon emissions?

Even within the transport industry itself, one can draw interesting comparisons. The fuel consumption of the new Airbus A380 is less than 3 litres per passenger per 100 km, while the average car currently marketed in Europe uses 6.5 litres per person per 10 100 km (9.6 litres in the US). The A380 produces less than 75 g of CO2 per passenger per km, while EU motor manufacturers are targeting 140 g this year. On the ground, airport infrastructure occupies only 1% of the land used for transport systems, while railways take 4% and roads 83%.

Wouldn't it make much more sense then to target automobile travel as the highest priority within the transport industry? Aircraft manufacturers are (and have been) working quite hard at improving fuel efficiency. Auto manufacturers are doing almost nothing of significance - the few hybrid cars on the roads achieve zilch benefit, and do nothing to address the bigger issues of travel impacts.

There is no real, economically viable, alternative to air travel for long-distance and intercontinental trips - ships take too long. One might argue that we should do less long-distance travel, thus reducing the need for air travel, but the impact on the economy would be enormous:

Airfreight carries 40% (by value) of interregional exports, while 25% of all companies' sales depend on airfreight, and 70% of all enterprises state the key benefit of using air transport is access to a larger market.

For surface transport, on the other hand, there are many alternatives to private vehicles, and the technical barriers to transformation of road-based vehicles to low- carbon technology are far fewer than for air transport.

And it's not only a question of "who killed the electric car?" but also of "who decided that cities should be such degrading, depressing and inhuman places for habitation and industry?" Cars are killing cities. Imagine a city where everyone didn't want to rush out to the cottage every weekend, but would be content to relax in an urban paradise. Imagine. Please.

Comments

[Le Roux]

Very interesting - I never thought of looking at it that way.

Btw.. you wrote "Europe uses 6.5 litres per person per 10 km"

Shouldn't that be 100km?

It would be quite interesting to see similar figures for ships (even though they are much slower).

I often wonder how cities would look if we had the same overall population density, but everyone lived in big apartment blocks. Then you can fill in the rest with parks and infrastructure for electric trains ;)

[Rory]

Oops - yes, a typo slipped in there. Thanks for your comment.

A comparison with ships would indeed be interesting. Ships would probably improve efficiency dramatically with greater numbers on board, as fuel use for a ship is probably less sensitive to the weight of passengers than an aircraft. A ship's base weight might be its downfall, similar to the problem with cars: most of the energy goes into propelling the craft or vehicle, not the passengers.