Aviation’s greenhouse gas emissions could consume around half the carbon budget available to the UK in 2050, even if the sector’s emissions growth is constrained.

If aviation emissions increase with rising demand for flights, the sector could claim as much as two-thirds of the budget for 1.5C, Carbon Brief analysis of the latest official climate advice shows.

The numbers make for awkward reading as the government approves a new runway at Heathrow, which it says is needed to meet ever-rising demand for air travel.

Paris Agreement

The Paris Agreement on climate change, due to enter force on 4 November, pledges to limit warming to “well below” 2C and, if possible, no more than 1.5C above pre-industrial temperatures.

In order to meet this aim, countries must make careful use of the very limited remaining carbon budget. That budget could be used up within five years, leaving the world reliant on unproven negative emissions technologies in order to draw CO₂ out of the atmosphere.

Paris means the UK must raise its existing climate ambition: it will have to reach net-zero emissions, whereas its current legislated target is to cut emissions 80% below 1990 levels by 2050.

The Committee on Climate Change (CCC), the government’s official advisers, says it is too early to set a date for reaching net zero. However, the CCC notes that the 1.5C goal of Paris implies UK reductions of “at least 90% below 1990 levels by 2050”.

It gives a range of 86-96% for cutting emissions by 2050, if the UK takes an equal per capita share and if the world aims for at least a 50% chance that 1.5C will be avoided. Note that other ways to divide the burden of cutting emissions would probably entail more drastic cuts for the UK, while, arguably, a 50% chance of exceeding the 1.5C limit is risky.

Setting aside these questions, the middle of the CCC’s range – a 91% cut – would give the UK a carbon budget of 72 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent (MtCO₂e) in 2050. This is close to the limit of what the CCC believes to be possible using currently known technologies and options.

It thinks the maximum plausible cuts to UK emissions in 2050 would reach 92% below 1990 levels, or 64MtCO₂e. It’s worth adding that this builds in significant use of negative emissions, including biomass with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), as well as afforestation.

Flight forecasts

Where do aviation emissions fit into this? In its most recent forecasts of demand for air travel, the government said that even without a new runway at Heathrow, UK airports would serve 445 million passengers per annum (mppa) in 2050. This is more than twice the 211 mppa served in 2010.

The Department for Transport (DfT) said UK aviation emissions, including international flights departing from UK airports, would reach 47MtCO₂e by 2050 without airport expansion. With new runways, passenger numbers could rise to 480mppa, the DfT says. Carbon Brief estimates this would translate into emissions of 51MtCO₂e in 2050.

This figure is more than two-thirds (71%) of the 72MtCO₂e mid-range carbon budget for 2050 implied by the CCC, if the UK is to play its part in meeting the ambition of the Paris Agreement. It is also nearly a third (32%) of the budget for 2C, assuming the UK sticks with its 80% by 2050 target.

Graph: UK greenhouse gas emissions including the UK share of international aviation. Historic data runs through to 2014, the latest year for which aviation figures are available. The shaded area shows projected linear progress towards an overall 91% cut in 2050, with aviation capped to 2005 emissions. Source: Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and Carbon Brief analysis. Chart by Carbon Brief using Highcharts.

However, the CCC has said that UK aviation emissions should be limited to no more than 2005 levels, if the UK is to meet its 2050 carbon targets as cheaply as possible. This would mean a cap of 37.5MtCO₂e for UK-based air travel. That 37.5MtCO₂e cap would be equivalent to more than half (52%) of the allowable 1.5C-compatible carbon budget in 2050.

The CCC says the 37.5MtCO₂e cap can be met if plausible increases in aircraft efficiency and use of lower carbon fuels is accompanied by demand growth of no more than 60% above 2005 levels.

Note that this cap includes additional room to grow compared to today’s levels because emissions fell from 37.5MtCO₂e in 2005 to 31.9Mt in 2010, partly as a result of the financial crisis. They had reached only 32.9MtCO₂e in 2014, still more than 10% below the 2005 cap.

Airports Commission: aviation emissions to double by 2020

For its part, the Airports Commission led by Sir Howard Davies, said that demand for air travel would grow by closer to 100% to 2050. This would breach the CO₂ cap for aviation and would entail the UK buying overseas carbon offsets to balance the books.

Note: The UK will participate in an international carbon trading scheme to limit aviation emissions at 2020 levels, agreed by 191 countries in Montreal on 6 October. This will cover 85% of air traffic.

However, the CCC continues to oppose the use of international offsets, saying that “UK targets should focus on domestic effort”. In a letter to the CCC, Davies said that UK aviation emissions could be constrained to the 37.5MtCO₂ cap, but only with an extremely high carbon price.

Writing in the Telegraph this week, Davies says that climate goals mean it would be a mistake to allow both Heathrow and Gatwick to expand: “Allowing two proposals to continue could mean neither is built, as it would be impossible to argue that both runways could be fully used in the next twenty years while meeting our legislated climate change commitments. So the decision could be challenged in the courts.”

It’s worth adding that Davies suggests Birmingham airport might be expanded in future. His comments also relate to the UK’s existing climate targets, rather than the tougher goals likely to result from Paris.

Global problem

The UK is already responsible for an above average share of international air travel, a position it presumably wishes to retain as it goes out into the world without EU membership.

Aviation emissions are among the most difficult to tackle, along with those from farms and factories. That’s why the new aviation climate deal is based around emissions offsets.

At a global scale, aviation could consume a quarter of carbon budget for 1.5C, recent Carbon Brief analysis showed. If the UK wants new runways, it must also take responsibility for the emissions those flights generate.

Dr Simon Evans is policy editor for Carbon Brief, covering climate and energy policy. He holds a PhD in biochemistry from Bristol University and previously studied chemistry at Oxford University. He worked for environment journal The ENDS Report for six years, covering topics including climate science and air pollution.

This article was originally published by Carbon Brief (CC BY-NC-ND).

Humanity has now entered a new climate reality era, with carbon dioxide concentrations expected to remain above the level of 400 parts per million throughout 2016 and for many generations to come, the World Meteorological Organization says.

The WMO, the United Nations system’s leading agency on weather, climate and water, says the globally averaged concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reached “the symbolic and significant milestone of 400 parts per million“ for the first time in 2015 and surged again to new records in 2016 on the back of the very powerful El Niño event.

CO₂ levels reached the 400 ppm barrier for certain months during 2015 and in certain places, but they have never done so on a global average basis for the entire year. The WMO says in its annual Greenhouse Gas Bulletin that the growth spurt in CO₂ was fuelled by El Niño, which started in 2015 and had a strong impact well into this year.

This, it says, triggered droughts in tropical regions and reduced the capacity of ‘sinks’ like forests, vegetation and the oceans to absorb CO_2. These sinks currently absorb about half of CO₂ emissions, but there is a risk that they could become saturated, increasing the proportion of carbon dioxide which stays in the atmosphere.

A 37% increase in ‘radiative forcing’ in 25 years

Between 1990 and 2015, the Bulletin says, there was a 37% increase in radiative forcing – the warming effect on the climate – because of long-lived greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide (N₂O) from industrial, agricultural and domestic activities.

“The year 2015 ushered in a new era of optimism and climate action with the Paris climate change agreement. But it will also make history as marking a new era of climate change reality with record high greenhouse gas concentrations”, said WMO secretary-general Petteri Taalas. “The El Niño event has disappeared. Climate change has not.”

“The real elephant in the room is carbon dioxide, which remains in the atmosphere for thousands of years and in the oceans for even longer. Without tackling CO₂ emissions, we cannot tackle climate change and keep temperature increases to below 2°C above the pre-industrial era.

“It is therefore of the utmost importance that the Paris Agreement does indeed enter into force well ahead of schedule on 4 November and that we fast-track its implementation.”

The WMO Bulletin also addresses the problem of rising concentrations of methane, the second most important long-lived greenhouse gas, which contributes about 17% of radiative forcing. About 40% of methane is emitted into the atmosphere by natural sources like wetlands and termites, with the rest coming from human activities like cattle breeding, rice growing, fossil fuel exploitation, landfills and biomass burning.

Atmospheric methane reached a new high of about 1,845 parts per billion (ppb) in 2015 and is now 256% of its pre-industrial level. Nitrous oxide’s atmospheric concentration in 2015 was about 328 parts per billion, 121% of pre-industrial levels. 

A ‘scientific base’ for UNFCCC’s Marrakech meeting next month

The Greenhouse Gas Bulletin provides a scientific base for decision-making, and the WMO has released it ahead of the UN climate change negotiations to be held in the Moroccan city of Marrakech from 7-18 November. They will be seeking to translate the Agreenent into an effective way of coping with the new climate reality era the WMO has identified.

The Bulletin says the pre-industrial level of about 278 ppm of CO₂ represented a balance between the atmosphere, the oceans and the biosphere. Human activities, such as the burning of fossil fuels, have altered the natural balance and in 2015 globally averaged levels were 144% of pre-industrial levels. The increase of  CO₂ from 2014 to 2015 was larger than the previous year and the average over the previous 10 years.

The Bulletin says the last El Niño, as well as reducing the capacity of vegetation to absorb CO₂, led to an increase in CO₂ emissions from forest fires. According to the Global Fire Emissions Database, CO₂ emissions in equatorial Asia – where there were serious forest fires in Indonesia in August-September 2015 – were more than twice as high as the 1997-2015 average.

Drought also has a big impact on CO₂ absorption by vegetation,  and scientists saw similar effects during the 1997-98 El Niño.

Alex Kirby writes for Climate News Network, where this article was originally published (CC BY-ND).

Aviation’s greenhouse gas emissions could consume around half the carbon budget available to the UK in 2050, even if the sector’s emissions growth is constrained.

If aviation emissions increase with rising demand for flights, the sector could claim as much as two-thirds of the budget for 1.5C, Carbon Brief analysis of the latest official climate advice shows.

The numbers make for awkward reading as the government approves a new runway at Heathrow, which it says is needed to meet ever-rising demand for air travel.

Paris Agreement

The Paris Agreement on climate change, due to enter force on 4 November, pledges to limit warming to “well below” 2C and, if possible, no more than 1.5C above pre-industrial temperatures.

In order to meet this aim, countries must make careful use of the very limited remaining carbon budget. That budget could be used up within five years, leaving the world reliant on unproven negative emissions technologies in order to draw CO₂ out of the atmosphere.

Paris means the UK must raise its existing climate ambition: it will have to reach net-zero emissions, whereas its current legislated target is to cut emissions 80% below 1990 levels by 2050.

The Committee on Climate Change (CCC), the government’s official advisers, says it is too early to set a date for reaching net zero. However, the CCC notes that the 1.5C goal of Paris implies UK reductions of “at least 90% below 1990 levels by 2050”.

It gives a range of 86-96% for cutting emissions by 2050, if the UK takes an equal per capita share and if the world aims for at least a 50% chance that 1.5C will be avoided. Note that other ways to divide the burden of cutting emissions would probably entail more drastic cuts for the UK, while, arguably, a 50% chance of exceeding the 1.5C limit is risky.

Setting aside these questions, the middle of the CCC’s range – a 91% cut – would give the UK a carbon budget of 72 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent (MtCO₂e) in 2050. This is close to the limit of what the CCC believes to be possible using currently known technologies and options.

It thinks the maximum plausible cuts to UK emissions in 2050 would reach 92% below 1990 levels, or 64MtCO₂e. It’s worth adding that this builds in significant use of negative emissions, including biomass with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), as well as afforestation.

Flight forecasts

Where do aviation emissions fit into this? In its most recent forecasts of demand for air travel, the government said that even without a new runway at Heathrow, UK airports would serve 445 million passengers per annum (mppa) in 2050. This is more than twice the 211 mppa served in 2010.

The Department for Transport (DfT) said UK aviation emissions, including international flights departing from UK airports, would reach 47MtCO₂e by 2050 without airport expansion. With new runways, passenger numbers could rise to 480mppa, the DfT says. Carbon Brief estimates this would translate into emissions of 51MtCO₂e in 2050.

This figure is more than two-thirds (71%) of the 72MtCO₂e mid-range carbon budget for 2050 implied by the CCC, if the UK is to play its part in meeting the ambition of the Paris Agreement. It is also nearly a third (32%) of the budget for 2C, assuming the UK sticks with its 80% by 2050 target.

Graph: UK greenhouse gas emissions including the UK share of international aviation. Historic data runs through to 2014, the latest year for which aviation figures are available. The shaded area shows projected linear progress towards an overall 91% cut in 2050, with aviation capped to 2005 emissions. Source: Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and Carbon Brief analysis. Chart by Carbon Brief using Highcharts.

However, the CCC has said that UK aviation emissions should be limited to no more than 2005 levels, if the UK is to meet its 2050 carbon targets as cheaply as possible. This would mean a cap of 37.5MtCO₂e for UK-based air travel. That 37.5MtCO₂e cap would be equivalent to more than half (52%) of the allowable 1.5C-compatible carbon budget in 2050.

The CCC says the 37.5MtCO₂e cap can be met if plausible increases in aircraft efficiency and use of lower carbon fuels is accompanied by demand growth of no more than 60% above 2005 levels.

Note that this cap includes additional room to grow compared to today’s levels because emissions fell from 37.5MtCO₂e in 2005 to 31.9Mt in 2010, partly as a result of the financial crisis. They had reached only 32.9MtCO₂e in 2014, still more than 10% below the 2005 cap.

Airports Commission: aviation emissions to double by 2020

For its part, the Airports Commission led by Sir Howard Davies, said that demand for air travel would grow by closer to 100% to 2050. This would breach the CO₂ cap for aviation and would entail the UK buying overseas carbon offsets to balance the books.

Note: The UK will participate in an international carbon trading scheme to limit aviation emissions at 2020 levels, agreed by 191 countries in Montreal on 6 October. This will cover 85% of air traffic.

However, the CCC continues to oppose the use of international offsets, saying that “UK targets should focus on domestic effort”. In a letter to the CCC, Davies said that UK aviation emissions could be constrained to the 37.5MtCO₂ cap, but only with an extremely high carbon price.

Writing in the Telegraph this week, Davies says that climate goals mean it would be a mistake to allow both Heathrow and Gatwick to expand: “Allowing two proposals to continue could mean neither is built, as it would be impossible to argue that both runways could be fully used in the next twenty years while meeting our legislated climate change commitments. So the decision could be challenged in the courts.”

It’s worth adding that Davies suggests Birmingham airport might be expanded in future. His comments also relate to the UK’s existing climate targets, rather than the tougher goals likely to result from Paris.

Global problem

The UK is already responsible for an above average share of international air travel, a position it presumably wishes to retain as it goes out into the world without EU membership.

Aviation emissions are among the most difficult to tackle, along with those from farms and factories. That’s why the new aviation climate deal is based around emissions offsets.

At a global scale, aviation could consume a quarter of carbon budget for 1.5C, recent Carbon Brief analysis showed. If the UK wants new runways, it must also take responsibility for the emissions those flights generate.

Dr Simon Evans is policy editor for Carbon Brief, covering climate and energy policy. He holds a PhD in biochemistry from Bristol University and previously studied chemistry at Oxford University. He worked for environment journal The ENDS Report for six years, covering topics including climate science and air pollution.

This article was originally published by Carbon Brief (CC BY-NC-ND).

Humanity has now entered a new climate reality era, with carbon dioxide concentrations expected to remain above the level of 400 parts per million throughout 2016 and for many generations to come, the World Meteorological Organization says.

The WMO, the United Nations system’s leading agency on weather, climate and water, says the globally averaged concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reached “the symbolic and significant milestone of 400 parts per million“ for the first time in 2015 and surged again to new records in 2016 on the back of the very powerful El Niño event.

CO₂ levels reached the 400 ppm barrier for certain months during 2015 and in certain places, but they have never done so on a global average basis for the entire year. The WMO says in its annual Greenhouse Gas Bulletin that the growth spurt in CO₂ was fuelled by El Niño, which started in 2015 and had a strong impact well into this year.

This, it says, triggered droughts in tropical regions and reduced the capacity of ‘sinks’ like forests, vegetation and the oceans to absorb CO_2. These sinks currently absorb about half of CO₂ emissions, but there is a risk that they could become saturated, increasing the proportion of carbon dioxide which stays in the atmosphere.

A 37% increase in ‘radiative forcing’ in 25 years

Between 1990 and 2015, the Bulletin says, there was a 37% increase in radiative forcing – the warming effect on the climate – because of long-lived greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide (N₂O) from industrial, agricultural and domestic activities.

“The year 2015 ushered in a new era of optimism and climate action with the Paris climate change agreement. But it will also make history as marking a new era of climate change reality with record high greenhouse gas concentrations”, said WMO secretary-general Petteri Taalas. “The El Niño event has disappeared. Climate change has not.”

“The real elephant in the room is carbon dioxide, which remains in the atmosphere for thousands of years and in the oceans for even longer. Without tackling CO₂ emissions, we cannot tackle climate change and keep temperature increases to below 2°C above the pre-industrial era.

“It is therefore of the utmost importance that the Paris Agreement does indeed enter into force well ahead of schedule on 4 November and that we fast-track its implementation.”

The WMO Bulletin also addresses the problem of rising concentrations of methane, the second most important long-lived greenhouse gas, which contributes about 17% of radiative forcing. About 40% of methane is emitted into the atmosphere by natural sources like wetlands and termites, with the rest coming from human activities like cattle breeding, rice growing, fossil fuel exploitation, landfills and biomass burning.

Atmospheric methane reached a new high of about 1,845 parts per billion (ppb) in 2015 and is now 256% of its pre-industrial level. Nitrous oxide’s atmospheric concentration in 2015 was about 328 parts per billion, 121% of pre-industrial levels. 

A ‘scientific base’ for UNFCCC’s Marrakech meeting next month

The Greenhouse Gas Bulletin provides a scientific base for decision-making, and the WMO has released it ahead of the UN climate change negotiations to be held in the Moroccan city of Marrakech from 7-18 November. They will be seeking to translate the Agreenent into an effective way of coping with the new climate reality era the WMO has identified.

The Bulletin says the pre-industrial level of about 278 ppm of CO₂ represented a balance between the atmosphere, the oceans and the biosphere. Human activities, such as the burning of fossil fuels, have altered the natural balance and in 2015 globally averaged levels were 144% of pre-industrial levels. The increase of  CO₂ from 2014 to 2015 was larger than the previous year and the average over the previous 10 years.

The Bulletin says the last El Niño, as well as reducing the capacity of vegetation to absorb CO₂, led to an increase in CO₂ emissions from forest fires. According to the Global Fire Emissions Database, CO₂ emissions in equatorial Asia – where there were serious forest fires in Indonesia in August-September 2015 – were more than twice as high as the 1997-2015 average.

Drought also has a big impact on CO₂ absorption by vegetation,  and scientists saw similar effects during the 1997-98 El Niño.

Alex Kirby writes for Climate News Network, where this article was originally published (CC BY-ND).

Aviation’s greenhouse gas emissions could consume around half the carbon budget available to the UK in 2050, even if the sector’s emissions growth is constrained.

If aviation emissions increase with rising demand for flights, the sector could claim as much as two-thirds of the budget for 1.5C, Carbon Brief analysis of the latest official climate advice shows.

The numbers make for awkward reading as the government approves a new runway at Heathrow, which it says is needed to meet ever-rising demand for air travel.

Paris Agreement

The Paris Agreement on climate change, due to enter force on 4 November, pledges to limit warming to “well below” 2C and, if possible, no more than 1.5C above pre-industrial temperatures.

In order to meet this aim, countries must make careful use of the very limited remaining carbon budget. That budget could be used up within five years, leaving the world reliant on unproven negative emissions technologies in order to draw CO₂ out of the atmosphere.

Paris means the UK must raise its existing climate ambition: it will have to reach net-zero emissions, whereas its current legislated target is to cut emissions 80% below 1990 levels by 2050.

The Committee on Climate Change (CCC), the government’s official advisers, says it is too early to set a date for reaching net zero. However, the CCC notes that the 1.5C goal of Paris implies UK reductions of “at least 90% below 1990 levels by 2050”.

It gives a range of 86-96% for cutting emissions by 2050, if the UK takes an equal per capita share and if the world aims for at least a 50% chance that 1.5C will be avoided. Note that other ways to divide the burden of cutting emissions would probably entail more drastic cuts for the UK, while, arguably, a 50% chance of exceeding the 1.5C limit is risky.

Setting aside these questions, the middle of the CCC’s range – a 91% cut – would give the UK a carbon budget of 72 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent (MtCO₂e) in 2050. This is close to the limit of what the CCC believes to be possible using currently known technologies and options.

It thinks the maximum plausible cuts to UK emissions in 2050 would reach 92% below 1990 levels, or 64MtCO₂e. It’s worth adding that this builds in significant use of negative emissions, including biomass with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), as well as afforestation.

Flight forecasts

Where do aviation emissions fit into this? In its most recent forecasts of demand for air travel, the government said that even without a new runway at Heathrow, UK airports would serve 445 million passengers per annum (mppa) in 2050. This is more than twice the 211 mppa served in 2010.

The Department for Transport (DfT) said UK aviation emissions, including international flights departing from UK airports, would reach 47MtCO₂e by 2050 without airport expansion. With new runways, passenger numbers could rise to 480mppa, the DfT says. Carbon Brief estimates this would translate into emissions of 51MtCO₂e in 2050.

This figure is more than two-thirds (71%) of the 72MtCO₂e mid-range carbon budget for 2050 implied by the CCC, if the UK is to play its part in meeting the ambition of the Paris Agreement. It is also nearly a third (32%) of the budget for 2C, assuming the UK sticks with its 80% by 2050 target.

Graph: UK greenhouse gas emissions including the UK share of international aviation. Historic data runs through to 2014, the latest year for which aviation figures are available. The shaded area shows projected linear progress towards an overall 91% cut in 2050, with aviation capped to 2005 emissions. Source: Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and Carbon Brief analysis. Chart by Carbon Brief using Highcharts.

However, the CCC has said that UK aviation emissions should be limited to no more than 2005 levels, if the UK is to meet its 2050 carbon targets as cheaply as possible. This would mean a cap of 37.5MtCO₂e for UK-based air travel. That 37.5MtCO₂e cap would be equivalent to more than half (52%) of the allowable 1.5C-compatible carbon budget in 2050.

The CCC says the 37.5MtCO₂e cap can be met if plausible increases in aircraft efficiency and use of lower carbon fuels is accompanied by demand growth of no more than 60% above 2005 levels.

Note that this cap includes additional room to grow compared to today’s levels because emissions fell from 37.5MtCO₂e in 2005 to 31.9Mt in 2010, partly as a result of the financial crisis. They had reached only 32.9MtCO₂e in 2014, still more than 10% below the 2005 cap.

Airports Commission: aviation emissions to double by 2020

For its part, the Airports Commission led by Sir Howard Davies, said that demand for air travel would grow by closer to 100% to 2050. This would breach the CO₂ cap for aviation and would entail the UK buying overseas carbon offsets to balance the books.

Note: The UK will participate in an international carbon trading scheme to limit aviation emissions at 2020 levels, agreed by 191 countries in Montreal on 6 October. This will cover 85% of air traffic.

However, the CCC continues to oppose the use of international offsets, saying that “UK targets should focus on domestic effort”. In a letter to the CCC, Davies said that UK aviation emissions could be constrained to the 37.5MtCO₂ cap, but only with an extremely high carbon price.

Writing in the Telegraph this week, Davies says that climate goals mean it would be a mistake to allow both Heathrow and Gatwick to expand: “Allowing two proposals to continue could mean neither is built, as it would be impossible to argue that both runways could be fully used in the next twenty years while meeting our legislated climate change commitments. So the decision could be challenged in the courts.”

It’s worth adding that Davies suggests Birmingham airport might be expanded in future. His comments also relate to the UK’s existing climate targets, rather than the tougher goals likely to result from Paris.

Global problem

The UK is already responsible for an above average share of international air travel, a position it presumably wishes to retain as it goes out into the world without EU membership.

Aviation emissions are among the most difficult to tackle, along with those from farms and factories. That’s why the new aviation climate deal is based around emissions offsets.

At a global scale, aviation could consume a quarter of carbon budget for 1.5C, recent Carbon Brief analysis showed. If the UK wants new runways, it must also take responsibility for the emissions those flights generate.

Dr Simon Evans is policy editor for Carbon Brief, covering climate and energy policy. He holds a PhD in biochemistry from Bristol University and previously studied chemistry at Oxford University. He worked for environment journal The ENDS Report for six years, covering topics including climate science and air pollution.

This article was originally published by Carbon Brief (CC BY-NC-ND).

Aviation’s greenhouse gas emissions could consume around half the carbon budget available to the UK in 2050, even if the sector’s emissions growth is constrained.

If aviation emissions increase with rising demand for flights, the sector could claim as much as two-thirds of the budget for 1.5C, Carbon Brief analysis of the latest official climate advice shows.

The numbers make for awkward reading as the government approves a new runway at Heathrow, which it says is needed to meet ever-rising demand for air travel.

Paris Agreement

The Paris Agreement on climate change, due to enter force on 4 November, pledges to limit warming to “well below” 2C and, if possible, no more than 1.5C above pre-industrial temperatures.

In order to meet this aim, countries must make careful use of the very limited remaining carbon budget. That budget could be used up within five years, leaving the world reliant on unproven negative emissions technologies in order to draw CO₂ out of the atmosphere.

Paris means the UK must raise its existing climate ambition: it will have to reach net-zero emissions, whereas its current legislated target is to cut emissions 80% below 1990 levels by 2050.

The Committee on Climate Change (CCC), the government’s official advisers, says it is too early to set a date for reaching net zero. However, the CCC notes that the 1.5C goal of Paris implies UK reductions of “at least 90% below 1990 levels by 2050”.

It gives a range of 86-96% for cutting emissions by 2050, if the UK takes an equal per capita share and if the world aims for at least a 50% chance that 1.5C will be avoided. Note that other ways to divide the burden of cutting emissions would probably entail more drastic cuts for the UK, while, arguably, a 50% chance of exceeding the 1.5C limit is risky.

Setting aside these questions, the middle of the CCC’s range – a 91% cut – would give the UK a carbon budget of 72 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent (MtCO₂e) in 2050. This is close to the limit of what the CCC believes to be possible using currently known technologies and options.

It thinks the maximum plausible cuts to UK emissions in 2050 would reach 92% below 1990 levels, or 64MtCO₂e. It’s worth adding that this builds in significant use of negative emissions, including biomass with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), as well as afforestation.

Flight forecasts

Where do aviation emissions fit into this? In its most recent forecasts of demand for air travel, the government said that even without a new runway at Heathrow, UK airports would serve 445 million passengers per annum (mppa) in 2050. This is more than twice the 211 mppa served in 2010.

The Department for Transport (DfT) said UK aviation emissions, including international flights departing from UK airports, would reach 47MtCO₂e by 2050 without airport expansion. With new runways, passenger numbers could rise to 480mppa, the DfT says. Carbon Brief estimates this would translate into emissions of 51MtCO₂e in 2050.

This figure is more than two-thirds (71%) of the 72MtCO₂e mid-range carbon budget for 2050 implied by the CCC, if the UK is to play its part in meeting the ambition of the Paris Agreement. It is also nearly a third (32%) of the budget for 2C, assuming the UK sticks with its 80% by 2050 target.

Graph: UK greenhouse gas emissions including the UK share of international aviation. Historic data runs through to 2014, the latest year for which aviation figures are available. The shaded area shows projected linear progress towards an overall 91% cut in 2050, with aviation capped to 2005 emissions. Source: Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and Carbon Brief analysis. Chart by Carbon Brief using Highcharts.

However, the CCC has said that UK aviation emissions should be limited to no more than 2005 levels, if the UK is to meet its 2050 carbon targets as cheaply as possible. This would mean a cap of 37.5MtCO₂e for UK-based air travel. That 37.5MtCO₂e cap would be equivalent to more than half (52%) of the allowable 1.5C-compatible carbon budget in 2050.

The CCC says the 37.5MtCO₂e cap can be met if plausible increases in aircraft efficiency and use of lower carbon fuels is accompanied by demand growth of no more than 60% above 2005 levels.

Note that this cap includes additional room to grow compared to today’s levels because emissions fell from 37.5MtCO₂e in 2005 to 31.9Mt in 2010, partly as a result of the financial crisis. They had reached only 32.9MtCO₂e in 2014, still more than 10% below the 2005 cap.

Airports Commission: aviation emissions to double by 2020

For its part, the Airports Commission led by Sir Howard Davies, said that demand for air travel would grow by closer to 100% to 2050. This would breach the CO₂ cap for aviation and would entail the UK buying overseas carbon offsets to balance the books.

Note: The UK will participate in an international carbon trading scheme to limit aviation emissions at 2020 levels, agreed by 191 countries in Montreal on 6 October. This will cover 85% of air traffic.

However, the CCC continues to oppose the use of international offsets, saying that “UK targets should focus on domestic effort”. In a letter to the CCC, Davies said that UK aviation emissions could be constrained to the 37.5MtCO₂ cap, but only with an extremely high carbon price.

Writing in the Telegraph this week, Davies says that climate goals mean it would be a mistake to allow both Heathrow and Gatwick to expand: “Allowing two proposals to continue could mean neither is built, as it would be impossible to argue that both runways could be fully used in the next twenty years while meeting our legislated climate change commitments. So the decision could be challenged in the courts.”

It’s worth adding that Davies suggests Birmingham airport might be expanded in future. His comments also relate to the UK’s existing climate targets, rather than the tougher goals likely to result from Paris.

Global problem

The UK is already responsible for an above average share of international air travel, a position it presumably wishes to retain as it goes out into the world without EU membership.

Aviation emissions are among the most difficult to tackle, along with those from farms and factories. That’s why the new aviation climate deal is based around emissions offsets.

At a global scale, aviation could consume a quarter of carbon budget for 1.5C, recent Carbon Brief analysis showed. If the UK wants new runways, it must also take responsibility for the emissions those flights generate.

Dr Simon Evans is policy editor for Carbon Brief, covering climate and energy policy. He holds a PhD in biochemistry from Bristol University and previously studied chemistry at Oxford University. He worked for environment journal The ENDS Report for six years, covering topics including climate science and air pollution.

This article was originally published by Carbon Brief (CC BY-NC-ND).

In a remarkable victory for environment, health and labour rights campaigners, Belgian regional governments including the capital, Brussels, blocked the controversial EU-Canada trade deal CETA today, placing the entire EU trade agenda in jeopardy.

Canada and the EU have been desperately trying to force a conclusion to the deal in the face of strong opposition in Belgium, where four out of five regional governments are opposed to the deal, echoing similar concerns in other member states.

However, last minute talks have failed with Belgium declaring that it cannot sign the deal, and the chair of the EU’s trade committee admitting: “CETA has failed.” The collapse of ther talks also represents a deep humiliation for the European Commission and its President Jean Claude Juncker.

Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau is now expected to cancel a scheduled trip to Brussels this week, where he was due to sign CETA on 27th October. According to War on Want trade campaigner Mark Dearn, the EU’s entire ‘free trade’ agenda is now “in shreds”:

“CETA is anything but a ‘progressive’ trade deal – in a killer blow to the fight against climate change, CETA has secured the importing of high-polluting tar sands oil from Canada, while it also threatens growth, job losses and declining trade between EU countries. CETA is the last thing Europe or the rest of the world needs right now.”

Wallonia joined by Brussels to defeat the eal

What sunk CETA was the sustained objection of Wallonia, the mainly French-speaking region of Belgium, since joined by other regional governments and the city of Brussels – the effective EU capital city. “The federal government, the German community and Flanders said ‘yes.’ Wallonia, the Brussels city government and the French community said ‘no'”, explained Belgium’s Prime Minister Claude Michel.

Under Belgium’s constitution, all five of the country’s regional governments have to consent to such an agreement before Belgium can sign up to it. Accordingly, Belgium was forced to veto the deal.

Wallonia’s Minister-President Paul Magnette first raised questions about CETA to the Commission more than a year ago. These were ignored, however further complaints by MEPS caused the Commission, Canada and EU Member States to produce a reassuring but non-binding 8-page ‘declaration’ that their concerns over the 1,600-page treaty were invalid.

After learning that Wallonia had only seven days to scrutinise the CETA ‘declaration’ and assess its accuracy, Magnette labelled the Commission’s timeline “an unacceptable violation of our democratic principles”.

Then, last week, a group of MEPs attempted to rush through a vote on CETA before Christmas, foregoing any opportunity for European Parliament committees to scrutinise the wide-ranging deal. The European Commission also made its last desperate push to conclude CETA in the face of stiff opposition across Europe, with Germany and Poland also expressing concerns.

Wallonia stood up to the pressure last Friday, refusing to give its consent to the deal. Canada’s trade minister stated that talks to save the deal had failed and that she was “very, very sad”.

But over the weekend, the President of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz MEP – who led controversial manoeuvres to force a TTIP resolution through the European Parliament last year – convened emergency meetings with Canada and the Walloon government in an effort to save CETA. Schulz told journalists: “We can’t stop at the last mile.”

André Antoine, the speaker of the Walloon parliament, told journalists today that Wallonia wanted “transparency and democracy to be respected” in negotiations. On Sunday, Paul Magnette, Wallonia’s minister-president, said that the EU’s ultimatum was “not compatible with the exercise of democratic rights.”

The blame for ther failure, said Mark Dearn, “lies with the European Commission’s high-handed and secretive approach to its trade deals, rather than the wholly valid concerns of Belgium’s regional governments.

What wrong with CETA?

A study published last month revealed the threat of CETA to jobs, growth and intra-EU trade. This was followed by an admission from trade committee MEPs that the deal’s text was flawed and failed to adequately address concerns around workers’ rights, public services and the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) ‘corporate court’ system.

After MEPs criticised flaws in the CETA text, Canada and the European Commission pieced together its controversial ‘declaration’ in a desperate attempt to save the deal, which both sides refuse to re-open for negotiation.

If CETA ever does pass through its full ratification process, the UK can be sued by US and Canadian corporations under the deal’s ‘corporate court’ investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanism for up to 20 years after Brexit.

Dearn concluded: “Canada’s trade minister may be ‘very, very sad’, but there are millions of people in Europe who will be very, very happy. Since talks first started on CETA back in 2009, the deal has sat alongside TTIP as an example of how not to do a trade deal – absolute secrecy, zero input from public interest groups and sheer contempt for the very valid concerns of people across Europe.”

Guy Taylor, trade campaigner for Global Justice Now said: “CETA has failed because these secretive negotiations were exposed to be much more about enhancing corporate power rather than about lowering trade barriers, and the toxic trade deal was being railroaded through by an increasingly remote and inflexible EU Commission.

“The entire trade agenda of the European Union now lies in tatters and needs reworking from scratch. This is an ideal opportunity to create a trade regime that prioritises people, while safe-guarding their health, their rights and the environment.

“Three and a half million people told the EU last year that these corporate power grabs were unacceptable. Brussels carried on regardless and now the architects of CETA are tasting the bitter fruits of failure.

“This should be a lesson to Jean-Claude Juncker and Cecilia Malmstrom and other EU politicians that their mandate is to represent people’s need not corporate greed.”

Oliver Tickell is contributing editor at The Ecologist.

Notes

1. CETA and tar sands oil: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-dearn/trade-deal-predicted-to-s_b_12134140.html

2. Walloons speak out against anti-democratic approach: http://www.politico.eu/pro/wallonia-rejects-eu-canada-trade-deal-ultimatum/

3. Belgium cannot sign CETA (French): http://www.lesoir.be/1350551/article/actualite/belgique/politique/2016-1…

4. Schulz – “we can’t stop at the last mile”: http://www.politico.eu/article/martin-schulz-in-last-ditch-effort-to-save-ceta-talks/

5. Bernd Lange – “CETA has failed”: https://twitter.com/berndlange/status/790541075102531584

6. Schulz’s involvement as divided MEPs pass controversial TTIP resolution: http://www.waronwant.org/media/divided-meps-pass-controversial-ttip-resolution

7. Study from Tufts University on the economic impact of CETA on Europe: http://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/policy_research/ceta_simulations.html

Theresa May’s leaked instructions to her Cabinet, advising them in what way they are permitted to dissent from her decision on airport expansion, are revealing.

The document, which is ostensibly an attempt to hold together a desperately divided cabinet, is all but confirmation that the Prime Minister will green light Heathrow expansion tomorrow.

That expansion will not be voted on in the Commons before next year is a welcome short-term reprieve, but the decision to expand any airport in the UK at all is a form of climate change denial.

Theresa May has promised to ratify the Paris Agreement by the end of the year. But, for that promise to be a symbol of actual intent, we must be asking whether we need airport expansion at all – rather than agonise over which unwilling community a new London runway should be foisted on.

The answer to that first question is an unequivocal ‘No!’. Britain can make an attempt to meet its commitments under the Paris climate agreement, or it can wave through airport expansion. It can’t do both.

While the Conservative government has stymied the efforts of the energy sector to move towards a low-carbon future, it is at least an industry that is capable of doing so. It is also an industry that is showing determination in the face of government subsidy cuts and a stripping of support.

Similarly, while the current administration is overseeing a rise in carbon emissions emanating from road vehicles, there are low carbon alternatives on the horizon. Electric road vehicles is an emerging market, with an increasing and diverse groundswell of support.

The manufactured myth of an ‘airport capacity crisis’

No such future exists for aviation. Aviation is a top-ten global polluter and, worryingly, emissions are expected, at the current rate of expansion, to balloon by 300% if something isn’t done soon. The historic ICAO aviation emissions deal agreed in Montreal focused not on reducing emissions from engines or replacing fossil fuels, but on weak energy efficiency and dubious ‘offsetting targets’, that won’t be mandatory for years to come.

The truth is that, just as we can’t develop any new fossil fuel reserves or push ahead with fracking, we can’t expand Heathrow or any other UK airport and hope to keep to the upper 2C limit for global average temperatures rises agreed in the Paris accord. Unless we take fast and decisive action to halt the use of Britain’s current fossil fuel stores, the more ambitious 1.5C limit is already beyond our reach.

Despite this stark reality, what we hear from our Ministers and what we see in our papers is impatient news of an ‘airport capacity crisis’ myth driven by the multi-million-pound budgets of the airport lobbies.

Heathrow, an airport which has so far seen soaring pre-tax profits of £223m in 2016, has spent almost £2m on its attempts to lobby TfL commuters in London while Gatwick airport, which made £141m in profit last year, has matched that spending almost pound for pound. The total advertising spend for both campaigns is estimated to be between £7m and £40m.

Heathrow airport even created and funded an entire fake ‘grassroots’ organisation to lobby for their paymaster’s cause. The airport lobbies stand accused of attempting to subvert democracy by buying unfair public and political influence. 

The reality is that there is no airport capacity ‘crisis’ in Britain. It has always been a myth. That more passengers fly in and out of London than any other city in the world is not an indication of a ‘crisis’; it’s merely a statistic with some important caveats.

In fact, every airport in the UK, apart from Heathrow, is operating under capacity. Existing rail services can offer genuinely workable alternatives for the nine out of the ten most popular routes out of Heathrow airport. And, perhaps most importantly, three-quarters of international passengers are disproportionately wealthy and travel for leisure.

UK’s 15% of ‘frequent flyers’ take 70% of all flights

That last caveat is a stark reminder of the inherent unfairness ingrained in Britain’s aviation industry. Just 15% of the most wealthy frequent flyers take 70% of flights. The current taxation system means those who don’t fly and those who fly even just once a year are subsidising the jet-setting lifestyles of a privileged few.

Heathrow expansion is the wrong answer to the wrong question. “No, we don’t need any new runways!” is the correct answer to the correct question. We must, instead, reject the ‘crisis’ myth, work to reduce demand while making the industry fairer. 

As Greens, we support a fairer frequent flyer levy that would help reduce demand driven by the privileged few and reduce costs for the average UK holidaymaker. At the same time, demand for business flights can be reduced by around 20% with investment in remote and digital office solutions. The World Wide Fund for Nature is currently running a scheme to help organisations achieve this target. 

Furthermore, the post-referendum consensus is that aviation demand in the UK will not rise by the numbers outlined in the report. Indeed, Theresa May’s final airport decision is likely be based on the now dreadfully out-of-date report published by the Airports Commission.

The Commission, while vastly inflating the economic and employment benefits of airport expansion, based its passenger projections on figures from 2013. Britain and her economy were in a very different place three years ago. The economic impact of the EU referendum result and the expected impact of leaving the European Union have rendered its findings at best, inaccurate, at worst, useless.

A country that ‘works for the many, not the privileged few’?

With the decision looming, I’m asking Theresa May to consider not the false choice between Gatwick and Heathrow, but the kind of future she wants to build for Britain.

Prioritising the needs of a small number of wealthy jet-setters over the needs of ordinary holidaymakers and listening to corporate lobbyists while ignoring the local communities set to suffer the immediate air and noise pollution impacts of expansion – to which the government has no answer, as leaked documents reveal – is hardly a step towards delivering a country that “works for the many, not the privileged few”.

Moreover, ratifying the Paris Agreement without any intention of honouring its commitments and, subsequently, failing to deliver a secure future for our children and our children’s children is hardly working in the long-term interests of the British people. 

Keith Taylor is the Green Party MEP for South East England.

Website: keithtaylormep.org.uk.

Does the concept of a living planet uplift and inspire you, or is it a disturbing example of woo-woo nonsense that distracts us from practical, science-based policies?

The scientifically-oriented nuts-and-bolts environmental or social activist will roll her eyes upon hearing phrases like ‘The planet is a living being.’ From there it is a short step to sentiments like, ‘Love will heal the world’, ‘What we need most is a shift in consciousness’, and ‘Let’s get in touch with our indigenous soul.’

What’s wrong with such ideas? The skeptics make a potent argument. Not only are these ideas delusional, they say, but to voice them is a strategic error that opens environmentalism to accusations of flakiness.

By invoking unscientific concepts, by prattling on about the ‘heart’ or spirit or the sacred, we will be dismissed as naive, fuzzy-headed, irrational, hysterical, over-emotional hippies. What we need, they say, is more data, more logic, more numbers, better arguments, and more practical solutions framed in language acceptable to policy-makers and the public.

I think that argument is mistaken. By shying away from the idea of a living planet, we rob environmentalism of its authentic motive force, engender paralysis rather than action, and implicitly endorse the worldview that enables our destruction of the planet.

The psychology of contempt

To see that, let’s start by observing that the objection to ‘Earth is alive’ isn’t primarily a scientific objection. After all, science can easily affirm or deny Earth’s aliveness depending on what definition of life is being used. No, we are dealing with an emotional perception here, one that goes beyond ‘alive’ to affirm that Earth is sentient, conscious, even sacred. That is what upsets the critics.

Furthermore, the derisiveness of the criticism, encoded in words like ‘hippie’ or ‘flake’, also shows that more than an intellectual difference of opinion is at stake. Usually, derision comes from insecurity or fear. “Judgment”, says Marshall Rosenberg, “is the tragic expression of an unmet need.”

What are they afraid of? (And I-the voice of the derisive critic lives in me as well.) Could it be that the contempt comes in part from a fear that one is, oneself, ‘naive, irrational and over-emotional?’ Could the target of the derision be the projection of an insecurity lurking within? Is there a part of ourselves that we disown and project, in distorted form, onto others-an innocent, trusting, childlike part? A feminine part? A vulnerable part?

If so, then critics of the infiltration of New Age ideas into the environmental movement may not be serving the movement at all. They may be enacting their own psychological dramas instead. If you are one of those critics, I am not asking you to join hands with me and sing ‘Kumbaya’. I ask only that you soberly and honestly consider where your discomfort comes from.

Certainly, much of the discomfort is a healthy revulsion toward the escapism, spiritual bypass, and cultural appropriation that plague so much of the New Age. Certainly, there is a danger that, intoxicated by the idea of cosmic purpose or some-such, we ignore the pain and grief that we must integrate if we are to act effectively and courageously.

Certainly, dogma like ‘It’s all good’ or ‘We’re all one’ can blind us to the exigency of the planetary crisis and discourage us from making changes in our lives. Certainly, borrowed rituals and concepts of sacredness can be an insidious form of colonialism, a strip-mining of cultural treasure to compensate for and enable the continuation of our own cultural vacuity.

Can we be hard-headed Earth lovers?

However, such criticisms address a mere caricature of the thoughtful work of generations of philosophers, scientists and spiritual teachers, who have framed sophisticated alternatives to conventional phenomenological, ontological and causal narratives. Phew, that was a mouthful. What I’m saying is not to hide behind facile criticisms.

The fear of being emotional, irrational, hysterical, etc. is very close to a fear of the inner feminine, and the exclusion of the fuzzy, the ill-defined, and the emotionally-perceived dimensions of our activism in favor of the linear, rational, and evidence-based, mirrors the domination over and marginalization of the feminine from our social choice-making.

Part of our resistance to the notion of Earth as a living being could be the patriarchal mind feeling threatened by feminine ways of knowing and choosing. But that’s still pretty theoretical, so let me share a little of my own introspection.

When I apprehend concepts such as ‘Earth is alive’, or ‘All things are sacred’, or ‘The universe and everything in it bears sentience, purpose and life’, there is always an emotion involved; in no case is my rejection or acceptance the result of pure ratiocination.

Either I embrace them with a feeling of eager, tender hope, or I reject them with a feeling of wariness, along the lines of ‘It is too good to be true’, or ‘I’m nobody’s fool.’ Sometimes, beyond wariness, I feel a hot flash of anger, as if I had been violated or betrayed. Why? That wariness is deeply connected to the contempt I’ve described. The derision of the cynic comes from a wound of crushed idealism and betrayed hopes.

Intelligence and purpose reside in humans alone. Don’t they?

We received it on a cultural level when the Age of Aquarius morphed into the Age of Ronald Reagan, and on an individual level as well when our childish perception of a living, personal universe in which we are destined to grow into magnificent creators gave way to an adulthood of deferred dreams and lowered expectations. Anything that exposes this wound will trigger our protective instincts.

One such protection is cynicism, which rejects and derides as foolish, naive or irrational anything that affirms the magic and idealism of youth. Our perceived worldview has cut us off, often quite brutally, from intimate connection with the rest of life and with the rest of matter.

The child hugs a tree and thinks it feels the hug and imagines the tree is his friend, only to learn that no, I’m sorry, the tree is just a bunch of woody cells with no central nervous system and therefore cannot possibly have the qualities of beingness that humans have.

The child imagines that just as she looks out on the world, the world looks back at her, only to learn that no, I’m sorry, the world consists of a jumble of insensate stuff, a random melee of subatomic particles, and that intelligence and purpose reside in human beings alone.

Science (as we have known it) renders us alone in an alien universe. At the same time, it crowns us as its lords and masters, for if sentience and purpose inhere in us alone, there is nothing stopping us from engineering the world as we see fit. There is no desire to listen for, no larger process to participate in, no consciousness to respect.

‘The Earth isn’t really alive’ is part of that ideological cutoff. Isn’t that the same cutoff that enables us to despoil the planet?

The wounded child interjects, “But what if it is true? What if the universe really is just as science describes?” What if, as the biologist Jacques Monod put it, we are alone in “an alien world. A world that is deaf to man’s music, just as indifferent to his hopes as to his suffering or his crimes”? Such is the wail of the separate self. It is loneliness and separation disguised as an empirical question.

While no amount of evidence can prove it false, we must acknowledge that the science that militates against an intelligent, purposeful, living universe is ideologically freighted and culturally bound. Witness the hostility of institutional science to any anomalous data or unorthodox theory that suggest purposiveness or intelligence as a property of inanimate matter.

Water memory, adaptive mutation, crop circles, morphic fields, psi phenomena, UFOs, plant communication, precognitive dreams … and a living Earth, a living sun, a living universe, all incite scorn. Anyone who believes in these, or even takes them as a valid topic of investigation, risks the usual epithets of ‘pseudo-scientist’, ‘flake’, or ‘woo-woo’, regardless of the merits of the theory or the strength of the evidence.

Of course, simply by making this assertion I open myself to the very same calumny. You can conveniently dismiss me as irrational, scientifically semi-literate, gullible at best and delusional at worst, perhaps knowingly dishonest, bamboozling my audience with learned allusions to impart an illusion of scientific probity to my ravings.

But if you really care about this Earth, you’ll want to be curious about the emotional content of this judgment. What hides behind the contempt? The reactivity?

What moves the environmentalist?

Our discomfort with New Age-sounding concepts like ‘The planet is alive’ is not entirely rational, but comes in large part from a wound of betrayal, cloaked in the pervasive ideology of our culture. Is it true though? We might play with various definitions of life and come up with logical, evidence-based arguments pro and con, just as we could debate the veracity of anomalous data and unconventional theories, and never come to an agreement.

So let us look at the matter through a strategic lens instead. What belief motivates effective action and real change? And what kind of action results from each belief?

Most people reading this probably consider themselves to be environmentalists; certainly most people think it is important to create a society that leaves a livable planet to future generations. What is it, exactly, that makes us into environmentalists? If we answer that, we might know how to turn others into environmentalists as well, and to deepen the commitment of those who already identify as such.

I don’t know about you, but I didn’t become an environmentalist because someone made a rational argument that convinced me that the planet was in danger. I became an environmentalist out of love and pain: love for the world and its beauty and the grief of seeing it destroyed.

It was only because I was in touch with these feelings that I had the ears to listen to evidence and reason and the eyes to see what is happening to our world. I believe that this love and this grief are latent in every human being. When they awaken, that person becomes an environmentalist.

Now, I am not saying that a rational, evidence-based analysis of the situation and possible solutions is unimportant. It’s just that it will be compelling only with the animating spirit of reverence for our planet, born of the felt connection to the beauty and pain around us.

The economics and liguistics of alienation

Our present economic and industrial systems can only function to the extent that we insulate ourselves from our love and our pain. We insulate ourselves geographically by pushing the worst degradation onto faraway places. We insulate ourselves economically by using money to avoid the immediate consequences of that degradation, pushing it onto the world’s poor.

We insulate ourselves perceptually by learning not to see or recognize the stress of the land and water around us and by forgetting what healthy forests, healthy streams and healthy skies look like. And we insulate ourselves ideologically by our trust in technological fixes and justifications like, “Well, we need fracking for energy independence, and besides it’s not that bad”, or “After all, this forest isn’t in an ecologically critical area.”

The most potent form of ideological insulation though is the belief that the world isn’t really in pain, that nothing worse is happening than the manipulation of matter by machines, and that therefore as long as we can engineer some substitute for ‘ecosystem services’, there need be no limit to what we do to nature. Absent any inherent purpose or intelligence, the planet is here for us to use.

Just today, the borough was removing trees on our street, and I felt grief and rage as I listened to the chainsaws, even as my mind said, “But after all, those are old trees and the branches could fall onto a person or damage a house. They are unsafe. And what does it matter? They are only trees.”

So here, inhabiting my own mind, was the fundamental ideology of domination (the trees must be removed because they stand in the way of human interests) and separation (they are ‘only trees’; they are not-self; they do not have the basic qualities of beingness that I do).

Look around this planet. See the results of that ideology writ large.

The love of life

The idea that our planet is alive, and further, that every mountain, river, lake and forest is a living being, even a sentient, purposive, sacred being, is therefore not a soppy emotional distraction from the environmental problems at hand.

To the contrary, it disposes us to feel more, to care more, and to do more. No longer can we hide from our grief and love behind the ideology that the world is just a pile of stuff to be used instrumentally for our own ends.

True, that ideology is perfectly consistent with cutting carbon emissions, and consistent as well with any environmental argument that invokes our survival as the primary basis for policymaking. A lot of environmental activism depends on appeals to survival anxiety. ‘We have to change our ways, or else!’

Appealing to fear and selfish interest, in general, is a natural tactic for anyone coming from a belief that the planet has no intrinsic value, no value beyond its utility. What other reason to preserve it is there, when it has no intrinsic value? It should be no surprise that this tactic has failed.

When environmentalists cite the potential economic losses from climate change, they implicitly endorse economic gain and loss as a basis for environmental decision-making. Doubtless they are imagining that they must ‘speak the language’ of the power elite, who supposedly don’t understand anything but money, but this strategy backfires when, as is the norm, financial self-interest and ecological sustainability are opposed.

Similarly, calls to preserve the rainforests because of the value of the medicines that may one day be derived from its species imply that, if only we can invent synthetic alternatives to whatever the forest might bear, we needn’t preserve the rainforest after all.

Ultimately, it it’s about the planet – not ‘us’

Even appealing to the well-being of one’s grandchildren harbors a similar trap: if that is your first concern, then what about environmental issues that only affect people in far-away lands, or that don’t tangibly harm any human being at all?

The clubbing of baby seals, the extinction of the river dolphin, the deafening of whales with sonar … it is hard to construct a compelling argument that any of these threaten the measurable well-being of future generations. Are we then to sacrifice these beings of little utility?

Besides, did anyone ever become a committed environmentalist because of all the money we’ll save? Because of all the benefits we’ll receive? I am willing to bet that even the survival of the species or the well-being of your grandchildren isn’t the real motive for your environmentalism.

You are not an environmentalist because you are afraid of what will happen if you don’t act. You are an environmentalist because you love our planet. To call others into environmentalism, we should therefore appeal to the same love in them. It is not only ineffectual but also insulting to offer someone a venal reason to act ecologically when we ourselves are doing it for love.

Nonetheless, environmental campaigning relies heavily on scare tactics. Fear might stimulate a few gestures of activism, but it does not sustain long-term commitment. It strengthens the habits of self-protection, but what we need is to strengthen the habits of service.

Why then do so many of us name “fear that we won’t have a livable planet” as the motive for their activism? I think it is to make that activism acceptable within the ideological framework I have described that takes an instrumentalist view of the planet.

The Gaian love that dare not speak its name

When we embrace what I believe is the true motive – love for this Earth – we veer close to the territory that the cynic derides. What is it to make ‘rational’ choices, after all? Is it ever really rational to choose from love? In particular, is it rational to love something that isn’t even alive? But the truth is, we love the Earth for what it is, not merely for what it provides.

I suspect that even the most hardheaded environmentalist, who derides the ‘Earth is alive’ crowd most vociferously, harbors a secret longing for the very object of his contempt. Deep down, he too believes the planet and everything on it is alive and sacred.

He is afraid to touch that knowledge, even as he longs for it. Often, his intellectual reasons are but rationalizations by which he gives himself permission to act on his felt understanding of what is sacred.

This person is all of us. I am no exception: the idea of a living, sentient Earth attracts me and repels me both, mirroring the polarity of opinion I observe at conferences between the nuts-and-bolts and spiritual factions. Accusations of ‘naive!’, ‘softheaded!’ and ‘gullible’ rattle around in my own brain, expressing a hurting thing within.

Maybe if I join the ranks of the critics and turn the criticism outward, accuse others of ignoring science and indulging in fuzzy thinking, I can find some temporary relief. But there is no real healing in that. I want to be whole. I want to feel more and not less. I want to heal these alienated parts of myself, so that I don’t act from them unconsciously and sabotage the beautiful vision that asks my contribution.

Each of us (in an industrial society) wades against the tide of an old ideology as we dare to act from the felt understanding of our intimate connection to life, our interdependency, our interbeing. Critiques of the idea of a living planet make that struggle all the harder.

In the interests of honesty as well as effective strategy, we need to look at the fear and pain that that critique comes from. Then we can get people in touch with their perception of a living sacred planet, so they can feel the grief and love that perception opens, and act upon it.

Charles Eisenstein is a speaker and writer focusing on themes of human culture and identity. He is the author of several books, most recently ‘Sacred Economics’ and ‘The More Beautiful World our Hearts Know is Possible’.

This article first appeared in Kosmos Journal and was republished by openDemocracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.

On October 18 the Welsh government announced a “refreshed“ policy on bovine TB.

This is because the current policy was designed to last for 5 years. That draws to a close at the end of this year, and they are running a 12-week consultation on the next steps.

They are already implementing ‘hard testing’ of cattle, which is seeing a rise in the numbers of infected cattle being slaughtered.

But the proposed policy mentions the possible culling of specific badgers that have been found to have bovine TB. Cue the farmers yelling for a ‘proper cull’ and headlines in the Welsh media saying ‘No, it will not be an English type cull’. But that, as ever, is what many farmers want.

On the other side of the fence, some wild-lifers were in uproar over the very mention of badgers being culled. But all was not as it seemed. Let’s go back to the beginning.

Wales’s success – without killing badgers

In 2008 the Welsh Assembly announced plans for a badger cull. In the same year they carried out a TB Health Check on all Welsh herds. This was followed with a programme of annual testing and cattle movement control.

Over the years this has resulted in a near 50% drop in cattle slaughter rates, while the badger culling was put on hold, and finally ruled out in 2012, since when NFU Cymru has kept lobbying for a badger cull. To date, no badgers have been killed.

Yet while the slaughter rate was slowly dropping, each hint of a rise saw NFU Cymru claiming that bovine TB was out of control. That the bTB testing was identifying more infected cattle was never considered.

In December 2015 Welsh farmers again called for badger culling, because the trial badger vaccination programme had been halted due to the lack of vaccine (something that affected all badger vaccination projects).

At the same time the cattle slaughter rate had again risen, giving farmers and their unions the opportunity to talk about the ‘reservoir of bTB’ in the wildlife, and the need to eradicate the TB by eradicating the wildlife, AKA badgers. And in February this year, Carmarthen County Council voted to lobby the Assembly to introduce a badger cull.

However, Defra figures show that although the slaughter rate has indeed risen between July 2015 and July 2016, over the same 12 months new herd incidents have dropped by 19%, and herds not officially free of TB (non-OFTB herds) by 10%.

In the light of these figures one has to conclude that the rise in the slaughter rate does not show a disease out of control; it shows that more stringent bTB testing is finding more infected animals within herds already hit by the disease.

Badger Trust is winning evidence-based argument

Looking at the storm of protest from wildlife lovers, and the media hype about Wales possibly culling badgers, Peter Martin, Chair of the Badger Trust, writes:

“The Badger Trust has maintained close ties with the Welsh government’s TB team over the years and have been greatly impressed and completely supportive of their rational, scientific approach to eradicating TB in cattle through carefully applied and stringent testing regimes as opposed to culling badgers.

“The Trust will continue to provide whatever advice and support we are asked for and commend the Welsh TB team for their determination, commitment and conspicuous success in driving down this dreadful disease whilst maintaining a healthy wildlife population.”

He continues: “Let’s be clear: the Trust is in a long war with the countryside, farming and political establishment who have control of Parliament and the media, and the backing of the NFU, Countryside Alliance and British Veterinary Association.

“Despite all that we have managed, small as the Trust is, to persuade the Welsh Government not to give in to this powerful lobby and to stick with their current, successful regime of strict cattle controls and improved testing.”

It is clear from the Consultation document that the Welsh government has studied and gained valuable information on how the disease develops and is maintained in the Welsh herds. Though badgers are mentioned, they appear to have little importance compared to cattle trading and animal husbandry.

Indeed, it looks as though what Wales is planning, in its ‘refreshed’ bTB policy, is pretty reasonable, as they are including even tighter cattle controls. However, they will be ‘looking at the policy’ in Northern Ireland where badgers are trapped and tested, and those with TB humanely killed.

Wales Government demands ‘objective confirmation’

Lesley Griffiths, Wales’s Secretary for the Environment and Rural Affairs, has said she will explore whether a similar approach could be used in high incidence areas where there is chronic herd breakdown, and an “objective confirmation” that badgers are infected.

But there is no assurance for pro-cull farmers that any culling will take place.

‘An objective confirmation.’ That is something that has been missing in the decades-long debate about badgers and bovine TB. We need to know just how many badgers culled in England have the disease; whether they are infected with the same strain of TB that the nearby cattle have; and whether, if left alone, badgers will naturally develop immunity.

There are a myriad of questions about badgers and their possible link to cattle with bTB – questions only ever answered by the assumption, unsupported by evidence, that badgers are to blame.

Most of all, will we ever get an ‘objective confirmation’ that badgers give TB to cattle? I doubt it. No science in the last 45 years has provided definitive proof that badgers play any significant role in giving cattle TB. And there’s no reason to think that will ever change.

Action: respond to Wales consultation on bovine TB.

Lesley Docksey is a freelance writer who writes for The Ecologist and other media on the badger cull and other environmental topics, and on political issues for UK and international websites.