UKH

The idea of each UK citizen being allowed one flight, being charged 10% extra for the next, 20% on the next and so on, seems a good approach to reduce CO2 in the stratosphere. When are we going to do this? Why aren't we doing it fast?

Rolling out a street by street, neighbourhood house insulation scheme run by local councils and national government seems an obvious win too, regarding heating efficiency.

Having a local repair shop, a really good repair shop that allows you to fix stuff for a decent price... Phones, laptops, toasters, fridges, bikes and these fixes would be cheaper than buying new... Surely that is a better idea. Getting rid of built in obsolescence too and fast fashion. 

Can capitalism deliver these things? Do we need to change the political system or will our system naturally evolve into a more statist one to do this?

Or will we just pull up the drawbridge, keep on as we are, update our nuclear weapons and accept an ecological disaster zone?

I'm OK in principle with taxing excessive jet mileage but it would be a bit unfair to treat equally for tax/ emissions  a flight to see my mate in Galway and a flight to see my mate in Melbourne.

Who would supervise the frequent flyer proposal?

Presumably you’d need a government department to keep track of this and there would need to be a whole host of exemptions (flying doctors spring to mind)?

Wouldn’t a better solution just be to tax all flights more based on CO2 output, incentivising airlines to move towards lower carbon solutions. 

Edit: presumably you’d also need a joined up solution with our neighbours. Otherwise what’s to stop me taking the Eurostar to Paris and then taking my 20th long haul flight of the year to wherever I fancy.
 

There are no alternatives in the time frame we’re working on, less flights are the only answer at the moment

remove frequent flyer programs would be a start, plus a rising tax on number of flights 

The real battle is going to be on urban and rural cars, cars are not needed in the urban landscape but the only way to improve public transport is to get the middle classes on it ( you’d be amazed at how clean and comfortable and efficient public transport will become when the middle classes have to use it)

what will happen is we we will allow the rich to upgrade to expensive electric cars and leave an ever expanding pool of people being crippled financially trying to stay on the car ladder or left dependant on a creaky public ( (but privatised transport system)

this will create lots of pushback and left behinds

we need to start at the top and work down, make it quite clear that urban car ownership is going and removal the huge aspirational that car ownership generates at the same time make the benefits clear, more urban space, cleaner air, money saved

This will allow the market to adapt, car hires for your trip to Scotland with car pooling website’s etc

I completely agree that we need immediate action.

My problem with the thinking of the OP (and I’m not having a dig) is that the OP presumably isn’t a frequent flyer (nor am I - I don’t have a valid passport at the moment) and by proposing this system has suggested something that won’t change his/her behaviour (and there’s a couple of obvious flaws).

If we want rapid change then we have to accept that we need to bite the bullet and change all of our behaviour - not just the behaviour of “other people”.

However, you could be deep green in your choices, the impact of which will pale in significance when conpared to your frequent flying, meat eating, 4x4/van driving neighbour

Graduated taxation in line with the polluter pays principle seems an emminently reasonable policy level to pull

It would be better to discourage internal flights in the UK, tax those. Thats the better and simpler starting point.

Your big issue with flights is international agreements.

I also suspect that business travel flights post Covid will be well down anyway.

I agree that the polluter pays principle should be used, but I’m sceptical of the graduated idea.

Everyone needs to accept responsibility for their pollution. Our whole mindset needs to change. It’s not someone else’s problem/ fault - it’s all of our problem/ fault.

We all must take collective action to address pollution and not point towards “other people” to change something to fix our issues. 

If that makes a cheap holiday in the sun out of reach for most people - so be it.

There's not much alternative to long haul flights, but tax them heavily and use the revenue to plant forests.

Nationalise the railways and the buses, electrify/hydrogenise them, upgrade and modernise the services to make them pleasant to use, make local services free at the point of use, and inter-city services for a small fee (say up to a limit of about £40 for a single from London to Aberdeen) - connecting regional cities directly to continental inter-city services in the process  instead of making everyone change to Eurostar at London (rejoining the EU and joining Schengen would make this at lot easier, but could still be done) - then tax the sh*t out of domestic and European flights.

Edit: also raise fuel duty once there's a decent public transport service and use that revenue to plant trees too.

It can't be hard to tax flights sufficiently that the notion of stag and hen weekends in another country disappears. UK rail needs sorting out, there's no incentive to use it over the car. 

I think it's a stupid idea based on the concept that there is some right to a fortnight in Benidorm- there is no peasantry entitlement to a fortnight in the Algarve.

The real problem is a lack of parity between taxes on aviation fuel and taxes on other CO2 emitting forms or transport - this makes aeroplanes significantly more competitive that they would be on a level playing fieldand drives behaviour and the economy in the wrong direction. Avoiding sorting this out with bells and whistles and adding  a half-term getaway bonus into the mix is just obfuscation and political bullshit.

I look forward to a low tax petrol allowance for local drivers, a low tax booze allowance for moderate drinkers and a tax free burger allowance for people with BMIs<25.

Obviously people seem to object too the idea that urban car ownership is unsustainable but with 68% of the worlds population forecast to be urban by 2050 are we arguing (or quietly working out our own exceptionallism) that every person should have their own personal steel, plastic, rubber and rare metal electric car parked outside their house?Joined up urban transport has historically been a thing in the past and can be achieved with a change of mindset 

the problem is rural car ownership and how to ensure that lower income rural people can get around once the pool of affordable second hand fossil dual cars is depleted and how we manage that.

the  gilets jaunes protest were partly due to an increase in diesel fuel duty that helped clear urban air but was largely felt financially by rural poor so we need to manage  it carefully which is why we need to start at the top, I think Trump and Brexit has shown us what happens when the pool of pissed off people gets too big. Just making car ownership more expensive is going to get us where we want.

That last sentence should * not going to get us where we want 

Aviation is divisive but it's not that big a chunk of our transport emissions. It'd be nice to start reducing the impact of individual flights by cleaning up the fuel and boosting operations efficiency further. We also need to start eliminating unnecessary* travel. That said, it's not the lowest hanging fruit with the tools we realistically have available as a (increasingly isolated) democracy in a world of competing interests and tension.

*obviously a contentious word/idea, almost nobody thinks their flight is unnecessary

I'm not convinced. Shared space is shared space, when someone pisses on the bus seat or rubs chewing gum into it you're left with the choice of degrading service availability or quality, there isn't a second way, you can't choose your customers so either way the experience is still frequently poor and outside of dense city centres (even out into the suburbs) the service density necessarily has to drop off fast (or you're running empty busses through residential streets constantly) so the convenience will never rival personally owned (or at least controlled) options for short-medium length trips.

Do most people even buy new cars these days, I thought they leased them then they were sold on at 2-3 years old. The unexploited market for cheaper new e-cars will quickly cause manufacturers to figure out how to fill out their ranges, as they did with IC vehicles. We don't all need 2.5T cars with 70kWH batteries but for now while component availability is scaling up those are (I'd already be starting to argue were, not are) where the profit is. At the same time as the new vehicle range expands away from luxury/performance the the used market will fill out and mature. The risk to poorer car users and those with really unusual use-cases is if we get really aggressively back onto road fuel taxes to drive conversion before the supply side is sufficiently mature but that's been 'paused' for more than a decade. It's not a popular policy, I don't see it being the lever any government reaches for here to drive change.

Many of the IC vehicles made today will still be available and cheap in 2035. Likewise the electrics. Which type is the cheapest option will be dictated more by tax policy than simple supply constraints.

I'm not sure a heavy hand is needed here (though expanding pedestrianisation of key centres/streets would be nice) I suspect tech enabled car-share schemes and convenient ride hailing, especially once automation starts really pulling down prices or driving up availability, will do the trick. Of course with the loss of private hire driving you get a new problem.

I'm not arguing against regulation, far from it, but I do think we're at a moment where the confluence of existing regulation and maturing technology will start to deliver really significant change, now not soon. Sure vigilance and regulatory tweaks will be needed to keep the market working in both public and shareholder interest and we may need significantly more strategic state investment as opportunities for decarbonisation open up but road transport at least is changing fast now.

jk

Democracies don't work like that. Not for long anyway.

jk

I sort of agree with you (although not on specifics).  Wouldn't a carbon tax be the simplest  - charged at source, so to oil, gas, coal producers etc.  This would then be passed to end-users exactly in proportion to use and encourage everyone to reduce emissions, either by reducing activity or by devising more carbon-efficient ways of doing things.

If a agreement on minimum corporation tax is possible, this must be doable too.

Indeed, remove APD for the airlines!

While we are at it remove the subsidised rates for rail fuel and the bus operators grant as well, make my car more competitive!

The problem is really the international treaty on aviation fuel duty which needs to be removed in favour of a standard (and high) international agreed rate of duty.

In reality some may come of the former.  Road pricing is often considered the way to deal with taxing EV use, but in reality car use in rural areas causes far less harm than in urban areas and is often the only way to get around with public transport not financially viable to operate, and even when it was a bus once a week doesn't do a lot for social inclusion.  I have therefore wondered if we'll deal with EV taxation differently, and simply tax parking in urban areas - after all, no point going somewhere if you can't park - including parking spaces on private land and on public roads.  That way people can drive around rural areas if they need to, but are pushed to use park and ride etc in cities, which is exactly what you want to happen.

Well exactly.

How you politically manage the situation is incredibly difficult.

I’ve had the misfortune of listening to the Jeremy Vine show on radio 2 today and they’re covering the COP26 conference. Every single caller has said politicians need to do more about climate change.

I was also listening two weeks ago when the news about gas prices was a hot topic and every caller was arguing that politicians should be making gas cheaper.

The idiocy of the masses in a nutshell.

How we get to a low carbon future will be a delicate balancing act. The problem talking about this on UKC is I suspect we’re (compared to Mr/Mrs average) all rather privileged and are in a position to pay more for stuff if we need to (for example I could still likely afford a holiday to Spain - once I got a passport - even if carbon taxes doubled the cost of it). Does that distort my view on how we should act - almost certainly.

That does seem one of the conceptually simpler and potentially loophole free options but it'd have a lot of unexpected and predictable consequences to manage (for an obvious example fertiliser price spikes driving developing world famine, borrowing/aid dependance, corruption, destabilisation then population exodus spreading instability). Also I'm not sure how well it would really work when applied to a market where the base taxable price is essentially set not by demand but by a cartel throttling supply. Nor can I see how you'd actually achieve it given how many governments are beholden to that cartel one way or another.

jk

If you assume they're the same callers. Of course like you I suspect plenty are but I'd hesitate to generalise too far

jk

Yes, but doing nothing will also result in similar disruption may be not really a factor.

Well maybe we can't, in which case we are probably done for.  However, many government were beholden to low corporation tax too, so perhaps it's a doable.

youtube.com/watch?v=-vzaJgZeuF0&

Unfortunately like all the other meets nothing much will change, there will just be a pi$$ing contest of target setting, but limited if any results in a reasonable time frame.

Cop is too much like a show, music, poems, celebrity speeches. It should be more like G20, bilderberg or Davos, those with power and scientists meeting productively behind closed doors. Less rhetoric and grand standing for the press, just more definitive progress. 

In case my previous reply went over the OP's head we already tax internal flights as well as long haul. Air Passenger Duty was introduced to a) raise money for the Treasury b) reduce CO² and other emissions.

The Greens can bleat as much as they lije that aircraft fuel isn't taxed but most countries have an APD equivalent which serves the same purpose. Frequent fliers just pour more into the government coffers, money which can be directed to other world-saving endevours. And better than a direct fuel surcharge they hit the rich disproportionally harder.

If you take a flight London-New York you'll use about 160l of fuel, the cattle class pay £82.00 so 50p per l duty, those up front with canapes and champers are paying £180.00 so well over a quid a litre.

Short haul is even better (or worse), cattle class London-Paris works out at £1.10 per litre duty.

The OP wants to even up the playing field, lets see what happens when the duty on a gallon of diesel for his Skoda  is £4.50. And the 35p a litre subsidy for bus companies is removed.

Hi Jim

What are your proposals to reduce fossil fuel use? If current trajectories continue, CO2 emissions will make the climate dangerously warmer.

How can we continue to fly so much knowing that? What about lots of people in China and India, for example who want to fly more frequently too?

Do you have an engineering solution? If not, do we accept a changing ecosystem and adapt to our new climate or mitigate the causes? 

Everyone has ideas for things we should cut or make more expensive. Typically things they don't use or value much.

You could argue to get rid of wood burning stoves but that would really annoy the country cottage set.

I like your post but you could have a long long thread on each of the single points that you raised.

For me, I'm going to try and buy less new stuff and repair / recycle more.

Every person on earth receives a carbon credit (acceptable emmisions divided by world population) and these can be traded. You won't like it.

Often find myself musing as to whether a global cap of one international trip by plane per person per year would work. 

Nobody would like it but I suppose it may well be "Tough tits" for a lot of things before too long.

would do away with all international sporting events for a start. 

I agree with the carbon credit. It seems a workable solution. Wouldn't trading them cause all sorts of problems though? Better off being untradeable? 

By the way, I'm really not a green warrior, if that's what you mean. My kids think I'm the unreconstructed boomer problem who caused all this mess. But I do want to hear people's thoughts on trying to come up with solutions to the problem of our dependence and use of fossil fuels. 

What it all boils down to is that there are too many bloody people on a small planet!

Yes, it appears so. Although the demographics will eventually ease that problem this century. 

But I just cannot come up with a reasonably just solution to humans having less of an impact on the ecology of the planet without restrictions on personal freedoms. And that just doesn't sit well with liberal democracy and free markets. Or certainly the US/UK model.

It would be great if we could keep our freedoms but I can't get my head round how to do that, other than a beggar my neighbour attitude which I referred to in the OP. 

If we divided carbon credits equally amongst the worlds population I suspect you’d find that even living a modest lifestyle in the UK would mean you run out credit by the end of first week of January (assuming your annual allowance of carbon starts on the 1st of Jan).

We developed nations produce a huge amount of carbon dioxide. 

The planet could easily support it's current population, what it can't support is the lifestyles of those of us in the rich industrialised nations.

Why shouldn't a peasant in Peru not be able to enjoy a better standard of living at Elon Musks expense? Or yours or mine for that matter? It's a global problem that will affect them more than us if it isn't sorted out.

Why.  As JK alluded to earlier , planes are the least of the issues. Easy target but does not really a achieve much.  

This will now be me.  I was ok until my life hit the buffers 2 years ago, coupled with my savings taking a pounding as a result of Covid stock market crash, and I needed the remainder to salvage my life.  When I retire it’ll either be a home of electric car, I’m fecked.

Agreed, we, as in nearly everyone on here, have too much stuff, clothes, outdoor toys etc... We joke the n+1 of bikes, but we are the problem.

I am a flyer. I like to go to southern Europe like the rest of us climbers. I have flown worldwide. However, I am trying to change my behaviour and reduce my flights. I was even thinking of turning up at an Ariege crag towing my kit on a bike trailer next time! I am trying to go mostly vegetarian these days too. So my own behaviour is changing but it is challenging. 

But I understand that climate activists want systematic, government led change rather than individuals trying to change and feeling a little bit guilty. 

I'm a bit worried that the solution that is going to be presented is making driving more expensive than current rail prices, rather than effectively swapping the costs. As it stands it would cost me something like 140 quid to go down to London to sort my passport out at the embassy, vs a third of a tank of diesel and 6 quid to park.

Indeed, easier than fixing rail, it's seems a few leaves and a tree can still grind uk trains to a halt. Pretty embarrassing for COP26 when folk switch to flying internally.

lower motorway speeds to 50mph.  This was used in the 1970s during the oil crisis.  Effect was far less pollution and fewer accidents and it reduces particulates from brakes and tyres.  With my heavy car in the 90s (Cavalier SRi several years old by then with a goodish amount of mileage on it) starting to drive and not exceed 50 put my miles per tank up to 600 from 420ish.

Just imagine the noise reduction too.

Do it Globally, Now, no need for any delay whatsoever.  Trouble is it is unacceptable

That categorically is not the problem, the emissions ruining our ecosystem are overwhelmingly from just a few generations of just a few countries. The incredible population growth which technology, predominantly Haber process fertilisers, has enabled does make an equitable, stable, sustainable future harder to achieve in the medium term but the population growth problem is eminantly solvabe by means which would bring many linked benefits.

Jk

In your dreams. 😊

Ahh that all trope, proved utter nonsense time and time again

The vast majority of emissions come from the lifestyles of a minority

Just stop celebs and politicians flying, that ought to do it. 

That would be a huge difference and very little difference to travel times too. I dropped my driving speed from 75 to 80 down to 60 to 65 and my mpg has gone up from 28 to 35 and that is a 50/50 split between motorway and urban driving. I have seen up to 38 mpg if I fill up directly before getting on the motorway.

Added bonus is I'm much more chilled out too. I'm no longer getting wound up being stuck behind the Muppet mooching along the M1. I am probably winding other people up being the one mooching along the M1 though.

Not least because woodburning is essentially carbon neutral, assuming good forestry. 

It is. Almost everything is because there are too many people- carbon emissions,  loss of biodiversity,  food, water shortages etc etc. Maybe a proper pandemic is needed?

It makes no sense for business travel.  Some jobs inherently need more travel than others, it is silly for everyone to have the same 'allowance'.  If you were to actually do this and the cost was substantial international companies would take senior managers out of the UK because senior managers do a lot of travel.

If there's going to be a scheme like that it should only apply to personal travel.

Lower the speed limit for petrol and diesel cars by 10mph.

The switch to electric will be ultraswift.

It isn't. The overwhelming majority of the surplus CO2 has been emitted by (or on behalf of) a handful of countries over the last 100 years (during which time emissions have increased 12 fold). Those countries have seen maybe 2Bn people live and die (for most of that period having a living population far below that). Most of those will until very recently have been fairly low emitters living essentially pre-consumerist lives.

Most of the c8Bn alive today are a new problem, not the cause of our existing one.

I'm not arguing the big population doesn't present us with a series of serious, interlinked problems with destructive feedback mechanisms but it's not the primary cause of our climate change mess, twentieth century European and North American consumers are overwhelmingly responsible.

jk

Which bit, reducing the rate of growth of global population? We know how to do that, we have plenty of case studies. End the infant mortality lottery. Provide women with control of their fertility.

jk

And neilh

Sure. 

I've been lucky enough to travel, I'd really really really love it if we could ignore flying and concentrate on other sources but I think that would be nothing more than what I would want to hear so I could travel more and kid myself it's somebody else's problem.

 I mean things like stupid long weekend trips to southern Spain and the like, whether for climbing or whatever else.

To my mind this kind of thing goes hand in hand with the "More stuff, more now, Amazon Prime" type lifestyle that's all too easy to get sucked into in 2021, and yes I include myself in that. 

Surely that's what needs to change?

So your saying covid isn't really a serious pandemic and we should have let rip to save the planet, and you want a more serious variant to emerge? 

Are you therefore implying everyone who is/was pro-restrictions is responsible for killing the planet with their anthropocentric hubris and selfish desire to maximise human life?

I don't think just modifying one avenue of western lifestyles will be even close to good enough. We likely need to change how we shop, what we buy, travel, energy sources, our leisure and holiday time, how and where we work, live etc. It's clearly way too late and any measure we do in the coming decades are just satisfy consciences. The lead in time for most measures is very long, like planting a tree now to offset your travel is almost utterly pointless.

Yup

'Only when the last tree has been cut down, the last fish been caught, and the last stream poisoned, will we realize we cannot eat money.' 

Cree first nation prophecy

Can't say we weren't warned. 

Our own evolved intelligence has enabled us as an animal to over populated our living space. We've built shelters, travelled, expanded food production beyond what was naturally available, learnt to treat fatal diseases etc. Etc.. in nature any none evolved species that over populated would have starved, killed by disease and so on. We will become the victims of our own success, yeah science solved covid pretty quick but science not going to stop climate change now, it might turn the corner in 50-100 years, as green energy, fusion or carbon capture improve.

Yeah, it doesn't match our want it now at all costs society. 

There is nothing wrong with cutting down forest in a progressive manner and replanting, provided you build with the wood. It's trapped carbon and way better than bricks & mortar. Again that's a 80 year lead in time. 

I'm not supporting lots of flights but the contribution to CO2 emissions from aviation is low -

Global aviation (including domestic and international; passenger and freight) accounts for:

1.9% of greenhouse gas emissions (which includes all greenhouse gases, not only CO2)

2.5% of CO2 emissions

3.5% of ‘'effective radiative forcing*’ – a closer measure of its impact on warming.

The latter two numbers refer to 2018, and the first to 2016, the latest year for which such data are available.

*Radiative forcing measures the difference between incoming energy and the energy radiated back to space. If more energy is absorbed than radiated, the atmosphere becomes warmer.

Dave

Source of the above - https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions-from-aviation

In the scheme if things, it isnt.

Roughly.

Yes, I'm aware of that data. Flying is totemic although even 3% would add warming. I mean, CO2 emissions are only part of it.

I once looked out on a bay in South Georgia and saw what can only be described as like a day from creation. There were whales in the sea, sea elephants, seals, penguins, and tens of thousands of different species of sea bird. Albatross chicks in the tussocks of grass. The air was loud with the noise of living things. 

And now, I look over a Scottish estuary. The difference in quantity and diversity of wildlife is profound and troubling. 

This is my main gripe with the climate emergency lot - the lack of focus on biodiversity and the importance of maintaining habitats for a diverse range of species to survive.

Some people seem to be happy living in a concrete desert as long as it doesn’t get too hot.

I probably sound like a climate change denialist saying this, but the earths temperature has risen and fallen over the past millennia. There’s pollen evidence of pine trees growing in the south of France c.20 thousand years ago, yet the species was able to migrate northwards due to the lack of human intervention. 

Climate change isn’t the be all and end all of conservation. We must protect biodiversity and in my opinion that should be the core focus of our interventions with climate change as a secondary factor to consider.

France c.20 thousand years ago, yet the species was able to migrate northwards due to the lack of human intervention. 

20,000 years vs 100 years

I'm not sure I'd label 3% of the overall problem as low impact. Find 10 such problems and eliminate them, and you're a third of the way to saving the planet.

Appreciate the difference in time frame, but the pollen data shows a surprisingly fast migration for a tree.

I just think we lose sight of what we’re trying to save in the debate. I don’t want to live on a sterile planet. I don’t think anyone on here does either.

I must admit I was slightly surprised when the announcement about stopping deforestation was made this morning (all though I’ll believe it when I see it).

I’m just always taken aback that this isn’t the core part of the debate.

Why should senior managers be exempt from the changes required to save the planet?

If you can't do business over the internet hire a local intermediary to speak for you, or step back and let someone who can.

Its not justs senior managers who fly...a common misunderstanding.

Covid has already sorted that issue out anyway.Behind the times in your comment.

I'm not sure that matters.  If more travel is really needed,  the emissions should be charged for.  Whether it can be one country by country or would need a global implementation is another matter.

I was responding directly to the suggestion that "senior managers" should be exempt from measures to curb flying.

I'm well aware that most business flights are not taken by senior management - I used to work for a software firm developing systems for investment banking, and most flights were taken by sales, implementation and support teams. I still have many non-senior-management friends who flew a lot for work up until the restrictions... some of them are quite environmentally aware, but they all tell me they have to carry on flying long haul multiple times a month in order to feed their families, doing the thing that they know how to do.

These are of course bright people who could easily retrain and do something else that would support a good standard of living, if they weren't trapped in the thinking that their six figure salaries were near the breadline, what with the costs of an appropriate postcode, car, and private school for their children, for the social bubble they live in.

Has it? United Airlines this week announced that they are expanding their transatlantic flights again, with bookings going up "at right angles".

"For nearly 30 years, United has provided a crucial link between the U.S. and London, maintaining service during the pandemic and strategically growing our program to keep our customers connected in these key global business hubs, said Patrick Qualy, United’s Senior Vice President of International Services, Network and, Alliances.

"London is an integral part of United’s network and we remain confident that demand will continue to grow, especially as international business travel returns in 2022", he added.

For high value sectors such as investment banking, the cost of putting someone on a plane to sort a bug is trivial compared to the savings that can be made, easier than providing full time local support, or providing full time remote support across time-zones (people prefer a jet lagged business trip where they can still have a normal meal and a drink after work, to working nightshifts and being out of sync with the world around them) - these sectors will not change because the pandemic forced them to do things a bit differently for a while IMO, they will need to be regulated to change.

My partner works globally from home. They start their day chatting to China, Vietnam  India...working their way through the zones finishing up with the USA. Just occasionally they might start or finish slightly differently to catch somewhere that's 12hrs opposite, otherwise they can speak to most places in standard working hours. 

Yep, there's lots that can be done in that manner, but if you're say implementing a new compliance system in an investment bank, or upgrading to a new version of the software, and a bug that causes a rounding error could cost hundreds of thousands a day, never mind the costs of a major bug or a go-live failure and rollback, you don't want someone on the end of a phone for a few hours of your working day.

You want a team to fly out and be on hand to oversee the process, even though conferencing software and a secure VPN should give them all the access they need - any physical network problems are going to be dealt with by your in-house team anyway.

I'm using a scenario I'm familiar with as the example, but in high value service industries people are flown around the world all the time so they can shake hands, look people in the eye, and take them out/be taken out for entertainment when the job is done.

There's also a status involved with that aspect of the job, which is not associated with working nightshifts in an office district at home - that sort of thing is reserved for IT techs, not the professional services team.

Well they will not be going to China for a start as it’s a 2 week isolation period. 

We can all come up with reasons why our job or interests are somehow special.  But if we do that, we are stuffed.  The scenario you mention is fairly low down the list of "essential" reasons to fly - it wouldn't need much imagination to avoid it

My partner works for AON so it's not that vastly different a sector and fully accept it can be cost and time efficient to get there face to face in some instances, plus the security factor, but also it's all IT you don't need to touch it personally, just connect to it.

Ps. As for errors, don't they test run offline with data first, then perhaps parallel test, before going live? Yeah I know they probably do, but errors can still occur. 

I think some of the travel is just habit and cultural, a friend is now vice president of the Scandinavian end of a big investment bank, they had to go to London to meet other heads, they said it was a waste and could easily be done virtually. These folk aren't travelling Ryan air and living in travellodge, there's still a lot of wasted time, money and carbon. 

Which is something far too many people want to ignore.

I keep wondering what the change would be in CO2 emissions if the world's population was reduced fairly quickly to what it was when I was young - that is by about 5 billion !

After all, 5 billion people less breathing, having food produced, cooking said food, driving cars, etc. would surely make things better.

But no, I'm NOT suggesting mass euthanasia. I am however suggesting that some sort of birth control should really have been gone into twenty or thirty years ago at least, to go with all the medical etc. improvements that reduced mortality rates, especially child mortality rates.

Religion is the biggest problem there, they are generally against women's rights, working, education and against contraception. Bigger families equal more future cult members. 

It would depend on where the 5 billion were. It is the populations of developed countries, mainly in the West, who are the major cause of the problem. 

That is a temporary situation - business travellers will spread out as restrictions are eased, if they are not restricted from doing so.

Absolutely - my point was that they won't use that imagination unless they are compelled to... it's not in their interests to take the environmental costs into account from a short term business perspective.

A surprising amount of back office stuff in banking runs off excel spreadsheets and the like... complex integrations with such systems are pretty hard to fully stress test. There would be plenty of resource put into attempting to do so - one of my tasks was maintaining internal testing environments for each of our customers using anonymised copies of their databases, so we were doing bespoke client testing during the development process, never mind once we started implementation. There was usually something that would come out after go-live. A lot of functionality in the software was only used by one or two clients, so even if 10 clients were running fine on the latest release, it didn't mean that the entire system had been used in anger.

Indeed, we need a culture change at these sorts of organisations... which I guess was my original point - we can't give anyone a free pass to continue with business as usual.

That's true (although beginning to change).  So it comes back to figuring out how to charge more for this sort of thing,

Why do you imagine charging more will change anything, it's rarely worked as an effective measure?

APD was introduced in 1996, in 1995 115.6m people flew in/from the UK. In 2019 it was 297m. So introducing an environmental tax more than doubled the environmental impact, a great success!

You noticed that your Mr Sunak halved the APD on domestic flights last Wednesday didn't you? On the face of it a retrograde step but encouraging people to fly to Exeter for the hols rather than Benidorm is naturally better for the environment.

It's a fairly general economic concept that higher costs reduce demand, other things being equal

Yes, and during that period airlines have been adept at reducing all their other costs so the overall price of flying has reduced. Hugely (and people have got richer)

A very, very thin defence of reducing the tax.

Put more simply, if the APD was increased to say £1000 per flight, do you think that would increase or decrease demand?

The success of EVs in Norway suggest otherwise. Tax incentives in favour of EVs and disincentives for ICE vehicles have led to EVs taking over 50% of the new car market in Norway. 

It would decrease demand. And impact the economy more, even the Treasuries own report said APD should be reduced or scrapped.

Tax income is not as simplistic as some think, with measures which reduce income or cause economic difficulties the government cannot subsidise environmental benefits like insulation, air pumps etc. The Norwiegens use "dirty" money from pumping fossil fuels (and selling dubious CO² certificates) to subsidise their EV move.

From my understanding China is a long way off dropping their restrictions and they are now building permanent isolation hotels and it also ties in with their Covid policy of keeping it to zero infections.

I business travel all over and Covid and the move to teams etc has revolutionised the need to do it.Whilst upto a point I get what you are saying in the investment banking world , there are whole swathes of the business travel market I suspect will not come back. The savings in time  ( flying to the USA for a meeting is so inefficient its ridiculous) and money never mind climate issues are far too great to ignore. Prior to Covid there was just no incentive whereas now people do not bat an eyelid to teams meets etc.I can remember thinking over the last 5 years companies just need nudging that way. Well the old social and business practise barriers have now been broken down.Nobody bats an eyelid now when I suggest teams etc for places like USA, Japan, India etc this includes sales, technical support and training.Before covidcomplete resistance.....

So I am more optimistic on the issue.

Well, yes, we could remove all environmental taxes and regulation and no doubt in the short term the economy would do well.  Most of us have got a little beyond that way of thinking, however.

And past the concept of using taxation as a blunt instrument as well.

Look at it the other way round.  Why should a multinational company base its senior managers in the UK?   There are plenty of other countries that want those jobs.

The company I used to work for had its headquarters in California, R&D and package/test in Ireland, R&D in Scotland, R&D in India, the chips were manufactured in Taiwan and subcontract package and test in Malaysia.  They also had sales offices all over the world.

The senior managers need to visit the company's offices.  They need to visit the subcontract manufacturing who are probably billing near on a billion dollars a year these days and they need to visit some really large customers.    

Some of the specialist engineers also need to travel globally.  There aren't many people with those skills, a 'local intermediary' isn't what is needed, what is needed is the expert.

The banks in London would be the first to think about moving people out the UK if this tax came in.  

Six figure salary / breadline / lol

This isn't a UK problem.  Its global. 

Seriously. 

I had one friend tell me, with a straight face, that they were "literally two pay cheques from the street". 

I pointed out that after a couple of decades in the city, trading up houses every few years, should they become unemployed and unemployable, they should have enough equity to sell up, buy a semi-detached house in their hometown of Cardiff for cash, enroll their kids in the local state school, swap the two fancy German cars for a little runaround, and be able to feed and clothe their family for several years before needing to sign on for benefits to keep them off the street.

They still didn't seem to think this meant they were in a privileged financial position compared to most people. They live in a social bubble where everyone has this sort of lifestyle, so it seems like the norm.

Yeah, but the OP is suggesting a UK tax which multiplies with the amount of flights you take.  The effect of that is companies won't but staff that need to fly a lot in the UK.

Industries with complex products like semiconductors need a global supply chain and R&D centres across the globe.   Travel can be reduced but its always going to be required and if the industry is doing something useful enough it is worthwhile.

International conferences for science and tech are another area where travel is useful.  If you are a specialist in a very narrow field you need a global event to meet your peers.   Conference travel should be reduced but it is still valuable.

I don't buy into the overpopulation argument myself, I think we'll hit a peak, drop and then come into an equilibrium. We're at the end of a growth phase in view. However if you're of that persuasion, you can't rationally expect us to implement measures to protect from diseases that primarily effect the elderly (mostly 90+ who on the whole would not be around without advanced healthcare and public health interventions) and then preach climate/environmental responsibility through limiting global population. The two can't co-exist.

The amount of single use plastics from masks, plastic test kits, sealing bags, gloves, plastic containers for sanitizer etc we're pumping out must be in the trillions of items by now. It's hard to see because we're in the midst of it, but it's quite mad when you stop looking from just that narrow perspective.

If it's a return to a more equilibrated state with nature, we have to come to terms with death. It seems a vampiric way around to be expecting life extension for those living now and reducing birth rates, rather than accepting a shorter lifespan and maintaining birthrates. Choosing the former will only lead to stagnation, aging populations, economic and social burden, less innovation and adaptability etc. 

No sane society would choose to reduce birthrates over accepting the old die.

We all need to make these changes. Putting economic competitive advantage above the health of the planet is what got us here in the first place - we can't just keep looking at each other and going "I'd like to do something, but it might cost me if you don't"... for the planet to remain inhabitable for human life, we need to take action.

Bollocks. Teleconferencing is the way forwards.

I do actually have some sympathy for Tom’s position here (might be a first). Business travel will bounce back sooner than we expect and is needed in some cases. Covid is holding people back, not a broader change in behaviour.

The way I see it is that you need to see actions you can take against climate change in 2 buckets. Personal and structural.

The personal bucket is things like eating less meat, flying less for pleasure, recycling more, ect. These can be done by all of us with limited impact on the wider economy. We should take it upon ourselves to do these things and it would be nice if the government nudged us towards this.

The structural bucket is things like government legislation, carbon taxes, subsidies and government support. This can have a significant impact on the wider economy and jobs and needs careful thought before implementation. Ideally they should be made in lockstep with other similar economies to stop us giving away competitive advantage.

There is always a balance to be struck. The idea we can create thousands of “green jobs” overnight is a fantasy. The future is olive (a mix of green and brown) which gets greener over time.

And it would be nice if people stopped destroying the natural world in the meantime.

Actually it's buildings in the the UK which are the cause of most emissions.

I agree though, aviation is seen as a luxury and, in the minds of many should be curbed. (I had to laugh at the picture of Ed Milliband getting off a private jet at Glasgow airport, days after lecturing us that domestic flights should be banned - Elites like Ed don't think 'the rules' should apply to them, only the little people).

Whilst I agree with TIE it is upto a point. What Covid has demonstrated to shareholders is that you for example can still have profitablity and wfh. You can still have a profitable multinational business and not have as much flying.I listened to one guy recently talk about the £20 million travel saving they had made with no impact to the business.

Its fine having this business travel, but in alot of cases it sucks profits and costs £/dollars/Euros.

So shareholders will ultimatley say- you do not need to do it.

And it is a waste of time in many cases. I recall in the 80s and 90s I travelled a lot, mainly to the US, for meeting with journal editorial boards. The board meeting would take 2 hours at the most, but the trip was always bulked out with other meetings which frequently had no useful outcome. If video conferencing had been available at the time, it would have saved a great deal of time. 

This is the important point.  Air travel and cars are nothing in comparison.

Wood is not good.  It rots, leaks, burns,  is weak and difficult to use.  Better to develop something like carbon fibre or a plastic (non fossil sourced), and stop using concrete.

Firstly, I'd say it's too early to tell whether curtailed travel has impacted R and D.  Massive product developments need years of gestation, testing and qualification.  Also remember it's not a good comparison if all your direct competitors are forced into the same position.

Nope. 

I can guarantee 99% of wooden Scandinavian houses will be still standing when many of the current uk new brick builds have been flattened for something better.

Our wooden house is roughly 160 years old, we replaced the outer cladding / planks for the first time in it's life. However, the house's internal structure was moved to its present location in the 1850/60s, from where it had been for at least 150 years previous. So built late 1600s or early 1700s, from big pines that were 100 plus years old, so likely growing in 1500s, that's carbon well locked it! 

The bonus with a wood frame is you can insulate easily and properly, putting a hole through to move with times isn't hard either. Versatility and it doesn't leak if you have a roof! 

I will bet you it carried on as normal. Just like the installation of our machines in overseas markets-- suddenly you do not need to send out an engineer to train people up for example --- with a bit of initiative the " percieved barriers" were over come.Suddenly remote testing etc can be done.And then the obvious questions - why has it taken us and our customers so long to change.

I am not saying that all business travel will be eliminated. But alot has been shown to be of questionable economic and business value now usurped by technology..

Sounds like Triggers old broom ( Only Fools and Horses)

Not going to replace Grenfell.

https://www.arctictoday.com/northern-sweden-becomes-home-to-one-of-the-worl...

Are you sure?

And what about the fact that many in the undeveloped countries are now moving to the developed countries BECAUSE they want to have what we in the west have ?

And what about the fact that many still in the undeveloped countries want to also have the same as the developed ?

The population of the undeveloped world is both changing its' aspirations and is on the move. The numbers of people there have to be reduced, or it won't matter a toss what we westerners do.

Please note - The INDIGINOUS numbers in the developed world have remained relatively constant (or even reduced), and the increase is mainly down to immigration or the offspring of immigrants.

Yes.

In some parts of the world females are just regarded as "baby factories", and I don't see that changing. Just recently there's been a flurry of adverts emphasising the plight of child brides.

We're at the end of a growth phase in view. However if you're of that persuasion, you can't rationally expect us to implement measures to protect from diseases that primarily effect the elderly (mostly 90+ who on the whole would not be around without advanced healthcare and public health interventions) and then preach climate/environmental responsibility through limiting global population. The two can't co-exist.

I wouldn't do so either, but then I do accept that the old die (and I'm coming up for 66 !). The problem is that some societies have a low average age - and these are the ones which are multiplying drastically.

Admittedly it's not perfect and was a little over due, so if future owners look to replace cladding around 2140/50 they should be OK. Wonder what current persimmon homes will look like by then!? 

We have to demonstrate that our standard of living can be achieved without the carbon emissions that we have incurred. If we do that, we reduce the pull factors of immigration.

Why should the populations of developing countries be reduced if the populations of developed countries are not reduced in equal proportions? Why should developing countries bear the brunt of our mistakes? 

I think the point is those in developing countries don't need to have 5 or 6 kids now, if they enjoy the benefits of better healthcare, education, employment..  these were the same drivers that created large offsprings in Europe 100-200 years ago. 

Carbon emissions from most developing countries are a tiny fraction of those in the West. Simply bleating about increasing populations in developing countries without acknowledging our role in creating the mess we are in now does not help anyone. It is our responsibility to find a way out of the mess we have created if we are to have any hope of persuading developing countries to follow a different path. 

Of course but maintaining populations at the current level is critical. The west screwed the planet whilst developing, and it's a fraction of global population, imagine how messed up it will be if countries grow their populations even more whilst developing thrmselves. Yeah, there's masses the west can do, but it's all too late. All we can do is help them leap over the most polluting industrialised tech era straight to better green tech.

This 2030 ban on chopping rain forests, that's like saying you've got 9 years to get as much as you can first! 

These climate meetings are all the same, all targets and goals, but nothing much is achieved in actual measures or results. 

Their standard of living would be increased if they simply stopped having so many children in the first place. Nowadays they no longer need to have 8 or 10 kids to ensure that there will be 2 or 3 to look after them in their old age - because the main reason their kids die early nowadays is because there isn't enough food grown in their countries to sustain such an increase in population.  (I will accept that some do grow a fair amount of food that is exported - but it's their own fault if they allow a small number of people to get rich at the expense of everyone else). Most - though not quite all - of the diseases that used to kill off babies/children can now be controlled, and would be heading toward elimination if it wasn't for some of these extreme anti-vaxxer religious nutjobs. Even malaria looks as though it could soon be a thing of the past due to recent developments.

As to "Why should the populations of developing countries be reduced if the populations of developed countries are not reduced in equal proportions?" - the answer is simple, the INDIGINOUS populations are already reducing, and they were at an extremely low rate of increase for many years (decades ?) before.

You still haven't addressed the issue that it is our mess and we have to take responsibility for clearing it up, rather than passing the buck to those who have not enjoyed the benefits of our excesses. 

Fred99 seems quite comfortable openly calling for eco-fascisim, based on no empirical evidence whatsover!!

It isn't OUR mess, it's everybody's mess.

Completely ignoring the fact that the developing world's population is exploding is ignoring one half of the problem.

It's a mess that affects everyone, but we caused it. For example, over the period since 1750, the UK has produced nearly 78 billion tonnes of CO2. Our per capita output is 4.85 tonnes.

Bangladesh, by comparison, has produced about 1.56 billion tonnes. The Bangladeshi per capita output is 0.56 tonnes. 

Cutting emissions here has a far greater overall impact than reducing emissions in Bangladesh. 

No, it's not. What happens to global emissions is completely dependent on what we do in industrialised countries. There is no justice in asking developing countries to change what they do if we don't change what we do. 

And how much is China producing each year - and Russia, and India, and the USA. There are cities in these countries that chuck out more crap into the atmosphere each year than the entire UK does. We are bit players in all this. Stop thinking that GB is a force in the World, we're not.

Bangladesh may have produced very little in comparison, after all, we had a 200 year start, but it's growing. And there are an awful lot of similar countries that are also growing in numbers quite dramatically each year.

Food production (and preparation) is a major feature of CO2 escaping, and whilst not that many people from the developing countries fly, a great number of them are burning timber (and even dung) to cook, which denudes the earth of it's co2 capture supply, and leads to worse agricultural capability for the land. Then we send them food (etc.), which means we regularly fly it to them - even worse for the environment !

Have a look at all the 'made in .....' labels in your house, all that pollution those cities are chucking out belongs to us western consumers too. 

Why?  They make just as much from that as we do, you can’t just ignore one side of the market when convenient (the western world sells them stuff too).  Most of the stuff they make is sold in China, exports is a small part of their production (and declining).

China, Russia, India and the USA are indeed major producers of CO2, and they do need to take actions to reduce their emissions. However, that they need to act does not mean we do not also need to act. We, along with all developed nations, have a major role in demonstrating that a decent lifestyle can be achieved with a low-carbon economy. We have a very high standard of living relative to most to the rest of the world. We have a responsibility to show that that standard of living is available to all within the goal of net-zero. 

We had a start - precisely. That's why we have a particular responsibility to act and demonstrate what can be done without adding more CO2 to the atmosphere.  

Of course it's two side. Chinese exports are small? Are you dreaming, look at the panic when the suez was blocked. 

Repetition does not indicate comprehension. The words taken together almost sound good, but are still wrong. 

Read what he wrote, China's exports are 18% of GDP.

But they are also still growing. The two are not incompatible. 

Gdp isn't precisely relevant, it's what the goods are, the pollution caused to build them etc.. that counts. 

You could have massive service sector gdp or say chip, battery and phone screen production causing huge opencast mines for rare earth metals etc.  All gdp isn't equal. 

Edit. Or even the shipping pollution, which on paper might sit against Panama, not the uk or China. 

Nearly halved since 2006.

So we blame the oil and gas producing countries for us wanting their sh#t, and the cuddly Danes for shipping it to us?

No we blame whoever buys it, without them there is no demand, no factory, no production, no pollution. 

What has nearly halved since 2006? I do wish people wouldn't be quite so cryptic. In 2010, exports from China stood at $1577.75 billion. In 2020, exports were $2591.12 billion.

In 2020, China exported approximately 2.6 trillion U.S. dollars worth of goods. This indicated a growth in export value of nearly four percent compared to the previous year.'

https://www.statista.com/statistics/263661/export-of-goods-from-china/ 

And their GDP? Now you are being cryptic!

Exports of goods and services as % of GDP- China (source World Bank).

2006- 36.035%

2020- 18.497%

In 2010 (since you moved the goalposts)

2010- 27.185

My point was that it's not incompatible for the total value of exports to increase while the value of exports as a proportion of GDP decreases, as per my post of 14.32. I think we have just proved that.

Unfortunately the UK has a damp, maritime climate that eats wooden houses for breakfast.  The modern SIPS panel housing being constructed here has an estimated lifespan of 60 years.

Chips, batteries and phones aren't the problem.   Electronics and computing are part of the solution, the more we can get done by shuffling bits rather than moving physical goods and people and the more we can use complex control systems to replace brute mechanical force or thermal power the better.

LED lighting, electric vehicles, reduction in printed paper, solar panels and the ability to integrate unreliable sources of electricity like wind turbines into the grid are all down to increased electronics content.

Rather than just looking at the phone and the small amount of lithium and rare earth metals it contains think about all the books, newspapers, DVDs and so on that won't be manufactured and shipped around the world because the user is consuming media electronically and the energy savings from using the GPS and mapping to compute more efficient routes and avoid traffic.

Curiously I sell some wood for paper pulp, demand has dropped, but cardboard production for packaging is booming. Everyone thought computers would reduce paper use, but everyone just printed more. It's apps on various devices that have replaced a lot of paper. Books though are making a come back, plus again it's trapped carbon provided they are kept.

Energy saving electronics..... bitcoin?  

Bitcoin is just pointless, to be honest.

I was thinking purely in terms of energy consumption, it's horrendous, never mind anything else. 

Right.  And so?   Over that period even more of China’s production is for China, not for the west (and the rest, they don’t just sell to us).  Maybe you can blame the foreign consumer for that proportion of their production, but it’s a very small proportion when you’re considering the U.K., and it ignores the benefit that producers get entirely.

Also worth pointing out China is a massive importer, exports are higher but not that much higher.

I don't really know what point you're trying to make. All I have been saying is that the total value of Chinese exports continues to grow, even while the Chinese GDP grows at a faster rate. As I have said on more than one occasion, the two are not incompatible. 

It is also the case that China is the world's leading exporter of goods and services. 

Whichever way to care to look at it, China continues to produce vast amounts of stuff. 

What makes me laugh is when the very wealthy around the world (including UK royals like Prince Charles and Prince Harry) sound off about how we all have to save the planet - while continuing to fly in private jets and make many other contributions to the problem. Hypocrites

For anybody still labouring under the impression that population control is essential to controlling / mitigating the worst of climate change:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-59157836 

With such a robust evidence base, such population control views are nothing more than Malthusian eco-fascism

My exports of machinery have grown to China over the same period.

(Winks)

I can see your post is just trolling. The article does not address population and does not contain robust evidence.  But the BBC publication does have interesting points.
It is throughout, only an attack on the rich.  Since people want to read it's someone elses fault.  I'm not saying the rich should not be under attack.  But solving problems would be better.
It says "Oxfam's report found that it's the 40% in the middle doing the most to curb emissions."  (No doubt this conveniently includes the author and targeted readership.)  Although stating that group produces 4.8 tonnes CO2,  but should only produce a maximum of 2.3.  Even if all the rich had been exterminated.

I'm bombarded with mails from my Asian importer begging for more stuff, a curious world! The lack of passenger flights to Hong Kong means it cost shedloads though, one aspect that the anti-flying brigade simplisticly ignore, the exporters from the UK must be struggling.

The energy consumption of data centers is large.  But you've got to consider the energy consumption to move people to and from offices and to move paper newspapers, books and physical media and to heat buildings specifically to sell and store physical products.   My guess, is that overall you come out miles ahead on terms of energy use by moving electrons and you probably also come out ahead in terms of energy by having a large Amazon style warehouse and a fleet of delivery vans making multiple stops on a calculated and optimised route rather than many geographically distributed physical shops and customers making individual journeys to collect goods.   That's not to say Amazon have got everything right.  They could definitely do better on the packaging front.

A lot of the populist eco-stuff isn't actually quantified in any way it is an emotional argument about making yourself feel morally superior by giving things up, just like Catholics giving things up for lent, and nostalgia about 'simpler times' and hand crafts.   All well and good but does it actually reduce carbon.  Probably not.

 Not really.  I have done 5 big shipments last month to China . No issues at all. Do not believe all you read. 

I was talking about the energy consumption of bitcoin being horrendous, why do you always only partially quote and then give responses that don't match what folk wrote originally.

Of course what you are saying is bit like wfh and offices, you save the travel pollution, but potentially heat more homes.  Too many variables to easily compare. 

Amazon and parcels, what's better 5 or 6 vans visiting your house every week, from different couriers, or one trip to the shops in person every 1-2 weeks? 

Does the uk still have Saturday post? 

Yes

Bizarre, anything urgent or critical would likely be sent by an agency that won't be in work until 9am Monday. The unions would have a fit, but it could easily be chopped. 

I read the numbers on the invoices I pay.

I really like flying to new places, its one of my greatest pleasures.  And it would be so so easy to make flying 2-3 times greener than it already is.   Flying is currently around 100 times safer per mile than driving ( https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/05/14/the-safest-and-deadl...)  why not , remove all of the seats that probably weigh around 50kg each and replace them with a  small stool or standing space,  this huge weight saving plus allowing space for around twice as many passengers would instantly allow me to take 2-3 times as many flights per year.  Sure it would be uncomfortable to be squashed in like that but if people don't like it they could drive instead (for me i would much much rather stand for 5 hours in squashed conditionos rather than drive for 1.5 days) and I bet the safety of planes like this would still be at least 10x better than cars. 

I really like flying to new places, its one of my greatest pleasures.  And it would be so so easy to make flying 2-3 times greener than it already is.   Flying is currently around 100 times safer per mile than driving ( https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/05/14/the-safest-and-deadl...)  why not , remove all of the seats that probably weigh around 50kg each and replace them with a  small stool or standing space,  this huge weight saving plus allowing space for around twice as many passengers would instantly allow me to take 2-3 times as many flights per year.  Sure it would be uncomfortable to be squashed in like that but if people don't like it they could drive instead (for me i would much much rather stand for 5 hours in squashed conditionos rather than drive for 1.5 days) and I bet the safety of planes like this would still be at least 10x better than cars. 

 I am seeing little difference in the cost of seafreighting. Probably because I export rather than import. ( where it’s clearly horrendous). 

So I suspect we are talking at cross purposes and about different things. 
 

Possibly, I was specifically talking about air-freight as I clearly wrote. The lack of passenger flights has had a massive impact on freight rates, roughly doubling them.

On the other hand sea freight outgoing should be nearly free due to lack of demand and imbalance in trade at the moment.