TTIP – How the US crushed the cornerstone of EU climate change policy
travel is the world’s fastest growing source of greenhouse gases like
carbon dioxide, which cause climate change. Globally the world’s 16,000
commercial jet aircraft generate more than 600 million tonnes of carbon
dioxide (CO2), the world’s major greenhouse gas, per year. Indeed
aviation generates nearly as much CO2 annually as that from all human
activities in Africa.”
It appears that the enormous pollution increase generated from
aircraft activity is due to rapid industry growth which has been
expanding at nearly two and half times average economic growth rates
since 1960.
To put a little more scale to the industry, according to the Air Transport Action Group (pro
aviation) there are over 58 million people employed worldwide in
aviation and related tourism. Of this, 8.7 million people work directly
in the aviation industry. Over 3 billion people use air transport a
year. However, as a result aviation is responsible for 2% to all human
activity generated CO2 emissions and 12% from all transport sources.
If aviation were a country, it would rank 21st in the world in terms
of gross domestic product (GDP), generating $606 billion of GDP per
year, considerably larger than some members of the G20 (and around the
same size as Switzerland). By 2026, it is forecast that aviation will
contribute $1 trillion to world GDP.
