It is not the first time that the ban on short flights has been put on the table to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The Government of Spain dropped it two years ago with the presentation of its roadmap to 2050, but it remained a proposal for the future.
Going further was Unidas Podemos, which in March of this year presented an amendment to the Sustainable Mobility Law where it urged the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda to “within a period of one year from the promulgation of this law” , that is, 12 months after the Sustainable Mobility legislation is passed, present in Parliament “a report on the possibility of eliminating national and international cargo flights with origin or destination at airports with a volume of freight traffic greater than 100,000 tons/year when there is a rail transport alternative lasting less than six hours. However, it was also kept in the drawer due to the early elections.
The one that has gone the furthest has been France with its Climate Law with which in May it banned domestic flights whose routes can be covered by train in less than two and a half hours and have sufficient frequencies and appropriate schedules. All in order to reduce the carbon footprint of the sector, which represents 2.5% of total global CO2 emissions. “Spain is one of the EU countries where domestic flights have grown the most in recent years, with enormous impacts in terms of emissions that are totally incompatible with the objectives we have set,” says Pablo Muñoz, Aviation coordinator at Ecologistas. in action.
According to the calculations of this environmental organization, the replacement of peninsular domestic flights that currently have a rail alternative of up to four hours could end more than 50,000 air operations and 300,000 tons of CO2 annually. “It is technically and legally viable,” says the environmentalist spokesperson.
6 million passengers
Unlike the French proposal that closes all routes less than 150 minutes, Ecologistas en Acción focuses on those trips that have a rail alternative of no more than four hours and that have a frequency of four trains a day. In total: 11 connections or 50,900 flights (a third of peninsular operations) or 5.9 million passengers.
The NGO places emphasis on the Barcelona and Madrid routes and services between Madrid and Valencia, Alicante, Málaga, Pamplona, Santiago de Compostela, Seville, La Coruña, Granada and Logroño. In total, according to Ecologistas calculations, 408.6 tons of nitrogen oxides and 2.7 tons of suspended particles that could potentially be eliminated in the case of modal substitution were produced. “These are very worrying figures due to their serious effects on the health of the population near airports,” explain the organization’s experts.
Throughout 2022, according to Aena figures, Spanish airports registered 2.2 million flights, of which 82.3 million traveled on domestic routes, 3.8% less than in 2019. A similar drop is suffered by airports. domestic routes, according to Eurocontrol, although Spain continues to lead the classification of community countries.
Internal flights have been recovering ground, although below the covid-19 era, and emissions continue to rise. Despite the drop, 80% of flights in 2022 across Europe were domestic.
The aviation sector is one of the industries that has received the most attention due to the emissions caused by its operations. According to data from before the pandemic, in 2019 the sector produced 915 million tons of CO2 worldwide, approximately 2.1% of total annual emissions due to human causes. For now, the plane is the most polluting means of transport, as well as the one that generates the most emissions. In some cases, in fact, it is estimated that the use of the plane is 38 times more polluting than its rail alternative. “Depending on the trip, air emissions are between 3.5 and 10 times more than traveling by train,” reveal the calculations published in the report. However, the average is 7.5 times more emissions per passenger per kilometer.
In 2019, the routes indicated by Ecologistas en Acción accounted for emissions of 379,000 tons of CO2 that year, which were 12% of those of the domestic air sector in total. “Every time you fly from Madrid to Barcelona, about 175 grams of carbon dioxide are produced per traveler and kilometer traveled,” highlights the NGO report. His alternative, according to his calculations, is 19 grams per person and kilometer.
In addition, these almost 51,000 flights produced 408.6 tons of nitrogen oxides and 2.7 tons of suspended particles potentially removable in the case of modal substitution. “These are very worrying figures due to their serious effects on the health of the population near airports,” explains Ecologistas.
Same effective time
Furthermore, according to Ecologistas, this change would not mean taking longer to reach destinations. The NGO estimates that “in door-to-door journeys, the total travel time on these 11 routes, the time by train is less than that necessary to cover them by air transport.”
This calculation includes the trips to and from the airport to the final destination, the lead time required by both means of transportation and the duration of the trip itself.
SAF as a decarbonizer
With the electrification of aviation still offline and facing numerous difficulties, decarbonization involves sustainable aviation fuels. This type of technology has been produced for some years now and the sector is clear: “Right now if we could use 100% SAF, aviation would be sustainable,” explained Teresa Parejo, director of sustainability at Iberia, in this interview with Anthropy.
However, the lack of infrastructure and regulation prevents the deployment of these new fuels. One of the latest measures is the investment of 1.2 billion euros in an action plan to boost this industry.
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