Alfred Posch as guest on the Ö1 Morgenjournal
On April 16th, the Ö1 Morgenjournal ran a report on the increasing emissions in aviation. Project leader Alfred Posch was a guest and presented research results from the Transflight project.
There is a climate-friendly intention, but the implementation fails.
“The intention is to do something for the climate, but actually implementing and changing your own behavior is the difficult step,” says Alfred Posch. Even though a third of those surveyed say they would like to fly less, leisure flights are still increasing. Business trips, on the other hand, tend to decline.
Emissions in aviation
Air travel accounts for a much larger share of the CO2 balance than previously assumed with only 3 to 4 percent. The reason for this is, among other things, international flights, which are not taken into account in the balance sheet. At the moment only flights within Austria are counted. If other factors such as contrail formation, nitrogen oxides and soot particles are included in these calculations, air traffic is responsible for around 10 percent of the greenhouse gas effects. If things continue as they are now, emissions from aviation could increase by more than 15 percent by 2030.
Trains as an alternative
In order for rail travel to be a more attractive alternative on short journeys, rail travel must become cheaper. In addition, tax breaks for air travel should be abolished and flying should generally become more expensive. The railway expansion could then be financed with this additional income.