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In connection with the globally rising temperatures, there is so much discussion about flying that even a new word has emerged: "flying shame" describes the bad conscience people develop because of the high CO2 emissions of air travel. Researchers have now investigated whether there is reason to do so in the German overall society.
The International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT), which also produces scientific analysis for public authorities, has studied how much carbon dioxide (CO2) commercial aviation emitted in 2018. The data source was publicly available information about aircraft taking off, such as airport operators. From the information, the experts calculated the CO2 emissions of the flights.
Result: In total, commercial air traffic emitted 918 million tonnes of CO2 last year. The majority, 80 percent, was accounted for by passenger aircraft and the rest by freight traffic (see chart below). To classify: Germany, combined all CO2 sources, 2018 total emitted nearly 800 million tons of greenhouse gas.
The EU ranks second in the emissions ranking
The ICCT has focused on passenger transport in its analysis. This was responsible for 747 million tonnes of CO2 last year. One third of CO2 emissions was accounted for by short, medium and long-haul flights.
The study always attributes the emissions to the country where the aircraft started. Accordingly, most of the CO2 emitted by passenger airplanes launched in the United States - 182 million tonnes in 2018. That is just under a quarter of the world's emissions generated in this area. Second place goes to China, third place to the United Kingdom.
In addition to the United Kingdom, three other EU states are represented in the top ten - Germany occupies fifth place. All in all, passenger aircraft taking off from the EU account for almost 20 percent of total passenger transport emissions. If the EU were a state, it would rank second in the ranking (see chart).
Germany contributes a good 22 million tonnes of CO2 to the output of passenger aircraft taking off from the EU. That's three percent of the total output for passenger traffic in the air. Seven percent of that, 1.5 million tons, is accounted for by domestic flights.
This is a small proportion compared to large area states such as the USA or China. In the United States, for example, domestic flights account for more than two thirds of the CO2 emissions from passenger aircraft.
Nevertheless, the flights are also in Germany in the criticism. Due to the high energy consumption at the start, about twice as much CO2 per kilometer and person is ejected on short routes than on longer flights. In comparatively small states such as Germany, there are often significantly more climate-friendly alternatives with similar time expenditure, such as the railway.