A radical new plan to reduce international air travel from Europe to minimal levels over the next few years has been proposed by a group of Net Zero fanatics led by the New Economics Foundation (NEF). Massive charges under a ‘frequent flyer levy’ are proposed, the effect of which could quickly destroy large sections of the international air transportation industry. Some of the money raised – or not as the case may be – will be sent abroad as ‘climate aid’ to less developed countries forced to stay poor by mandated restrictions on their use of hydrocarbons. Needless to say, the work is the product of what Ben Pile recently termed “bog-standard Green Blob fronts”. Writing and promoting the NEF publication involved a number of operations heavily funded by the usual suspects including the European Climate Foundation (ECF) and ClimateWorks.
The fantasy plan calls for large European surcharges to be added to ticket prices for multiple annual trips. Financial details are not provided in the press release but the report suggests €50 for a medium distance trip and additional levies of €100 for long and “comfort” classes. This would appear to suggest an extra €250 charge for long-distance business and first class travel. George Monbiot of the Guardian boasts of the report having been shared exclusively with his newspaper and writes that the €100 levy on both distance and class will rise with each trip. It is hoped the surcharges will raise €64 billion, a sum said to be equivalent to 30% of the entire EU annual budget. This would be spent, at least until the golden goose is killed stone dead, on accelerating Europe to a “fairer, greener economy”. More virtuous bungs can be sent to countries to stop them using hydrocarbons and recompense them for the non-existent climate crisis.
Although the report talks of reducing travel by around 25%, the blow will be much worse in financial terms. Many airlines rely on premium travel to keep economy tickets low and severe reductions would affect the economics of aviation, both in the air and on the ground. Reducing passenger traffic by a suggested 25% and very likely much more, would require massive restructuring across the board including air traffic control, baggage handling, security and border activities and airport management. Yet more lost jobs to be added to the increasing pile of Net Zero casualties.
Not that this is the end of the attack. Air travel has enabled countless millions to travel for pleasure, holidays, education, business and to connect with family over the last few decades. In pursuit of ther mad Net Zero policies, the eco-zealots tell us, further restrictions “would therefore be necessary”. These would include caps on the number of flights, airport slots, night flights, private jets and “limits on the more damaging comfort classes of travel”.
Want to know what is being planned by the Net Zero fanatics – look at what their Blob-funded puppets are writing. In this case, forget about flying within just a few short years.
The New Economics Foundation has been around for a few years pumping out Left wing propaganda. It is no surprise that the hard Left’s favourite money tree the Rowntree Trust has funnelled in cash, although much larger amounts have been supplied by the Laudes Foundation and the ECF. As Ben Pile noted recently in the Daily Sceptic, most of the organisations active in the climate domain in the U.K. are funded by the ECF directly, or by one of the half dozen or so of the ECF’s grantor philanthropic foundations. As Pile also observes, the “hapless consumer” is ensnared by the phantom institutions that represent the green-ideology-addled British Establishment.
The NEF report is co-written by the Stay Grounded Network which, perhaps to nobody’s surprise, is funded by the ECF. The aviation campaigner at this outfit, Magdalena Heuwieser, says that the single trip flyer is paying the same tax as a traveller making 10 trips. Except that the more frequent flyer is actually paying 10 times more tax. Designed to fit a political narrative, Left wing sums often diverge from reality. In his article, Monbiot notes that air travel, heavily taxed as most passengers are aware, is “heavily subsidised” since the fuel is exempt from duties. In Monbiot’s world, a lack of a specific tax is often seen as a ‘subsidy’, while an actual £12 billion annual subsidy loaded onto U.K. electricity consumers to pay for unreliable renewable power is passed off as an ‘investment’. One reason fuel duty is not levied on aviation is that mobile jet aircraft will ‘tanker up’ at cheaper locations.
Monbiot reports on the view of Marlene Engelhorn who states that the “mile-high club of private planet combustion, where wealthy people like me can ferment in our comfort zones, needs to close it doors”. Easy to say of course when you are a wealthy heiress who has inherited a fortune from the BASF chemical operation. Other people who work for a living and need holidays and some modest comfort as they travel to drum up business might take a different view.
According to Monbiot, the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) reviewed an early draft of the NEF report. Another Green Blob-funded operation of course, mostly it seems through ClimateWorks. This large operation channels considerable flows of money from other billionaire foundations such as Hewlett and Packard. These two latter operations are also direct funders of ICCT. Flying less is obviously the most effective solution to cutting emissions, states Sola Zhang, described by Monbiot as an aviation “expert”. Another operation quoted by Monbiot, More in Common, found that rich people would be most affected by a frequent flyer levy because they fly more. Again such value, such insight – funders ECF, the George Soros Open Society Foundation and Hewlett must be very pleased.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
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“Air travel has enabled countless millions to travel for pleasure, holidays, education, business and to connect with family”
That’s why the Green Blob hates it.
That txxt Cameron already added a huge levy on transatlantic and european flights. These psychopaths will not be satisfied until the untermench are being marched into gas chambers, then mincers to be turned into Soylant Green
Remind me, how many jets flew to COP 28..https://simpleflying.com/private-jet-flights-cop-28-carbon-footprint/
If you’re a climate zealot arsehole you don’t need to count those, they’re different, apparently!
Yes, it’s mental. But it can’t be argued against for as long as the premise of catastrophic man made climate change persists.
None of this is ever going to be stopped unless the idea that humans are causing massive climate damage is pushed back hard. Very hard.
You’d have thought the Airlines would take action against this propaganda, unless of course, they have been captured. The CEO given a nice bunce from the WEF.
It’s very very bizarre.
The Eurooean auto industry which is one of the great achievements of modernity in my view is being wrecked with little more than a lame whimper from the car companies.
We are senslessly destroying human knowledge and capability. Modern cars are really a wonder. The quality, reliability and efficiency, produced at incredibly low cost for what it is.
The people pushing for this are vandals.
The plan is to destroy the aviation industry, just as long as there are still enough private jets so they can attend their COP meetings, and Davos and Bilderberg shindigs in luxury.
On a not unrelated topic: Kuwaiti Minister detained for refusing biometric data at Airport.
Excellent video by Maajid Nawas following the work of Erik London who discovered a Gates/Microsoft connection to the Government. They talk about AI chip farms and Deep Learning. This could be the next step in 15 minute cities and health data (vaccine status).
Other ministers who spoke out had their Bank accounts frozen. Nothing to see here, shame Mark Dolan on GBN sticks to Tories % trivia!
https://rumble.com/v5irw63-kuwaiti-minister-detained-by-globalist-technocracy-after-refusing-to-provid.html?e9s=src_v1_ucp
The green blob is about to take a serious caning if the latest U.S. polls are correct.
‘Former President Trump on Sunday overtook Vice President Harris for the first time in the Decision Desk HQ/The Hill election forecast this cycle.
The model predicts Trump has a 52 percent chance of winning the presidency while Harris has a 42 percent chance, as of Sunday.
Since late August, the election forecast put Harris’s chances of winning at approximately 54 to 56 percent, with Trump’s chances at approximately 44 to 46 percent.
In early October, however, those dynamics began to shift, and the election forecast predicted both candidates’ chances to be closer to 50 percent.
On Oct. 17, the model predicted the two candidates were equally likely to win next month, and Trump took the advantage on Oct. 20.
The shift in election forecast coincides with the Republican candidate’s improved polling averages in Wisconsin and Michigan, two battleground states that previously leaned slightly toward Harris.
Trump already had a slim advantage in Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina.
Of the seven swing states seen as decisive in determining the outcome of the 2024 election, Pennsylvania is alone in still favoring Harris in its polling average.’
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4943975-trump-harris-election-forecast-shift/
The reason that politics in the West is now so polarised is simply because of ‘Big State’. So many livelihoods, fortunes on each side depend on Federal spending. Same in Britain.
As Ms Badenoch said, ‘systemic change’ is required.
As Steyn puts it….The margin is still close enough for another ‘steal’.
“wealthy heiress who has inherited a fortune from the BASF chemical operation” – which of course is now restructuring as fast as possible as a result of the massive increase in energy costs in Germany.
I expect the b!tch’s trust funds won’t be affected but it would be fun if she were reduced to penury and not just the long suffering workers at BASF and their network of suppliers, customers, their customers’ customers etc.
These Green Communists will wreck everything for everyone!
“These would include caps on the number of flights, airport slots, night flights, private jets ”
As for private jets, these restrictions are hardly going to bother the DAVOS class, the UN & WEF is where most of these ideas come from.
If this keeps the drunk riff-raff from Liverpool, Glasgow and Manchester off planes, it would improve life for the rest of us.
The rebirth of alcohol fuelled holiday camps in the UK could be an unintended consequence.
Any journey by politicians that cost more than economy should be treated as a benefit in kind for tax purposes, as should the subsidies on food and drink.
The quality of Monbiotic’s research is exhibited in his demented book: Feral, where he claims that the last indigenous pair of Capercaillie were shot for a Royal feast at Balmoral… in the 1780’s. Just over 60 years before Victoria bought the estate and built the castle, and 35 years before the first British monarch had set foot in Scotland since the coronation of Charles II.
At long last I am now able to upgrade to premium economy and I will have to pay yet more for my comfort when I fly? Total madness.
As ever the green blob is intent on destroying a financially viable sector for what????
Barstewards the lot of ’em.
I caught the bit about BASF and it reminded me of one of the scandals they were involved in. They were producing Talcum Powder with Asbestos in it. They paid out $72.5 million, $100 million with legal costs.
My first thought upon recall was “A man just killed himself because he was jailed for 3 years for hurty words. These ‘we are saving the planet’ people murdered how many with Asbestos?”.
What is $72 million to a firm like BASF compared to the loss of a hurty words Grandfather?
My second thought was, “How many will BASF et al. murder with their policies?”. Billions all across the world. The destruction of energy sources will murder far more than any atom bomb could.