The news of the planned $330
million expansion of the Melbourne Airport demonstrates that British authorities
are not the only ones struggling with myopia.
The expansion plans are aimed at ensuring Melbourne Airport can cope with
rapidly rising passenger numbers. By 2020, it is expected that passenger numbers
at Melbourne Airport will have doubled to eight million each year.
The skyrocketing number of aviation passengers is due to several factors,
including cheap flights and rising real incomes. But government policy has also
played a part as both federal and state governments have actively promoted
growth in the industry. For example, Tourism Victoria has aimed to achieve
growth in international air services to Victoria of four to five per cent a
year, faster than the economy overall.
Yet if Australia is committed to tackling climate change, things are going to
have to change. We must deal with our addiction to flying.
Aviation is currently responsible for a small proportion of greenhouse gas
emissions, around two per cent of Australia's total emissions. Because of this,
the aviation industry and governments have shown little interest in the impacts
of aviation on the atmosphere.
However, recent projections of aviation emissions in Australia to 2050
indicate that, if left unchecked, continued growth of the industry will derail
efforts to tackle global warming.
Between 2005 and 2050, emissions from aviation are expected to rise by more
than 250 per cent. This rate of growth is incompatible with the emission
reduction targets that are needed to avoid dangerous climate change.
The science suggests that Australia needs to cut its emissions by 80 per cent
by 2050, possibly higher. Yet if the aviation industry continues under
business-as-usual conditions, it could consume more than Australia's entire
emissions allowance in 2050.
Even if Australia adopts a lower target of 60 per cent reductions by 2050, as
the Labor Party has proposed, aviation could still gobble up more than half
Australia's emissions allowance by the middle of the century.
These projections point to one conclusion: if nothing is done to curb
aviation emissions, we won't be able to meet the targets that are necessary to
deal with climate change.
