cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/18104463
Air New Zealand has abandoned a 2030 goal to cut its carbon emissions, blaming difficulties securing more efficient planes and sustainable jet fuel.
The move makes it the first major carrier to back away from such a climate target.
The airline added it is working on a new short-term target and it remains committed to an industry-wide goal of achieving net zero emissions by 2050.
The aviation industry is estimated to produce around 2% of global carbon dioxide emissions, which airlines have been trying to reduce with measures including replacing older aircraft and using fuel from renewable sources.
We can’t find magical aircraft that can fly without fuel, so that’s it!
“Fuck the climate.” - Air New Zealand
Pretty sure this has nothing to do with the new “conservative” NZ government either.
My guess is this is the underlying reason. Basically these companies set up the infrastructure for when governments would start to mandate this stuff, and they’d get a bit of nice press out of it. However, the fossil companies have found that you can basically confound all progress by the private sector just via the threat of rolling back climate legislation. This happened when the LNP government even just mentioned a nuclear plan which is just plain stupid.
I’m guessing by even stating it, Air NZ has gone one better than a lot of companies, which have conveniently “forgotten” about their goals. They’ll get 20% of the way and declare that a success, but basically one company can’t move until all of them move. We need to get the crazies out of government and out of opposition too.
“We need to fly more, not less [for climate]” – EasyJet CEO Johan Lundgren (source, German)
Wow what an interviewer. It reads like Conflict Zone! 🥲
Please read the article. They had previously committed to much more ambitious goals than most airlines to begin with, and (as agreed by experts) are limited now by their government, which has been called New Zealand’s most conservative government in decades. Also limited by low supplies of better fuel and slower than expected output of newer model planes
Side note, not from the article: as the new hyper-conservative leader of New Zealand was Air New Zealand CEO, it wouldn’t be surprising that they aren’t especially unhappy. “Oh noes, guess we can’t fix it now. Ohhh welllll”
Yes, exactly. This is from the article:
In 2022, Air New Zealand adopted a 2030 target to cut its emissions by almost 29%.
It was much more ambitious than a 5% reduction goal over the same period set by the global aviation industry.
The worrying thing is not that they can’t meet their goal (they probably knew it was optimistic), it’s that they didn’t announce a new target. They said they are working on one, but why not work on the new goal then make the announcement?
A good reason would be to get ahead of the bad press and control the narrative. Even something as minor as a bad turn of phrase in an internal e-mail could force them to make a press release early, in that case becaues of the risk of it being stripped of context and leaked to the press by corporate spies or well-meaning whistleblowers in a way that looks way worse than a promise to get around to it later.
Not sure how likely this is compared to it being a fig leaf over cancelling the target altogether.
Air New Zealand admits that they are incompatible with a livable climate. Time to take their operating license, along with every other airline willing to just throw their hands up.
