Aviation Emissions

Aviation Emissions

     Keeping carbon emissions to a minimum, has become a major concern within recent years. there have been many new regulations implemented to make sure aviation to a minimum. Although aviation is focused on more than other forms of transportation. It seems that the aviation industry shouldn't be the primary focus. According to the Air Transport Action Group, "The global aviation industry produces around 2% of all human induced carbon-dioxide emissions." (Air Transport Action Group, 2016) When breaking this statistic down to an industry level, the number are still much lower. "Aviation is responsible for 12% of CO2 emissions from all transport sources, compared to 24% from road transport sources." ( Air Transport Action Group 2016) With these statistics given, it really does seem that the aviation industry is rather efficient in keeping carbon emissions down.  The spotlight should be put on industries that involve road transportation, which has much more contribution to carbon emissions than aviation.

     The United Nations recently came up with an agreement that would help reduce carbon emissions in the aviation sector. This became known as the Paris Agreement. The goal of this was to keep the rate of global warming under 2 degrees Celsius per year. This agreement " sets airlines' carbon emissions in 2020 as the upper limit of what carriers are allowed to discharge. Airlines that exceed that limit in future years, as most are expected to do, will have to offset their emissions growth by buying credits from other industries and projects that limit greenhouse gas emissions." (The Associated Press, 2016) It shows that the aviation industry is making a conscious effort to help reduce carbon emissions on their end.

     With President-Elect Trump in the transition process, he has given a good amount of his time talking about the Paris Agreement. Under his new plan he wants the US to withdraw from the Paris Agreement. Before this speech, he had said,"He would renegotiate the global agreement involving nearly all countries, but this time he went further and said the US would pull out .The climate change deal is bad for US business and said the pact allows foreign bureaucrats control over how much energy we use." Since Trump is not in office yet, he hasn't been able to take any action regarding the Paris Agreement. Once he steps into office, we will be able to gain a grasp on what President-Elect Trump's intentions are.

      I personally feel that there needs to be a healthy balance between making sure that aviation carbon emissions are reduced, and that we make sure that the economy is jeopardized. As stated previously, I don't believe that the aviation industry should be the central focus on trying to cut down carbon emissions. It seems that road transportation is a much larger problem and we should work on finding away to reduce this form of emissions. I feel that is necessary to regulate emissions to an extent, but you have to make sure that the US economy does not hurt from it in return.


SOURCES:

Facts & FIGURES - Air Transport Action Group (ATAG). (n.d.). Retrieved November 18, 2016, from http://www.atag.org/facts-and-figures.html

News, B. (2016, May 27). Donald Trump would 'cancel' Paris climate deal. Retrieved November 18, 2016, from http://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-36401174

 (2016). U.N. agreement reached on aircraft emissions curbs. Retrieved November 18, 2016, from http://triblive.com/business/headlines/11267400-74/agreement-emissions-aviation