The Cedar Lounge Revolution

Nice piece by Ciaran Cuffe of the Green Party in the Irish Times yesterday in response to Michael O’Leary’s bilious article on ‘eco-loons’ (which was considered here), I mean, I mean of course those who suggest aviation has a part to play in reducing emissions. Oh no, he meant eco-loons.

Anyhow, Cuffe notes:

IT’S HARD to know whether Michael O’Leary is in the denial or the anger stage of facing up to climate change. Clearly he took some satisfaction in his recent rants on the letters pages that accused columnist John Gibbons of belonging to the “eco-loonie” camp. Like a latter day Willy Loman in Arthur Miller’s play, Death of a Salesman, he has failed to realise that the world has changed, and he must learn the new rules of the game. He was at it again on Wednesday, addressing an Oireachtas Committee on Transport. Ironically next door the Climate Change Committee listened to submissions on the European Union’s proposals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

And further to the figures suggested by O’Leary – which were wrong – he argues:

As regards the science, O’Leary’s suggestion that aviation is only responsible for 2 per cent of emissions in Europe is incorrect.

According to the UK Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research EU 2005 aviation emissions were approximately 150 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2), representing 4 per cent of total emissions, and they are increasing fast. This figure does not include indirect warming effects, such as those from nitrogen oxide emissions, contrails and cirrus cloud effects, so the overall impact on climate may be as high as 12 per cent.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has estimated aviation’s total impact at twice or as much as four times the 4 per cent figure. Whatever way you look at it, O’Leary is clearly playing down the figures.

Moreover Cuffe notes that aviation is:

Remarkably … not subject to many of the taxes that apply to road or rail users. Due to a loophole, jet fuel has historically been exempt from taxation, creating an anomaly in the market that favours airlines. Indeed, under Ireland’s Essential Air Services Programme, some of Ryanair’s routes such as the Dublin-Kerry service receive a handsome annual subsidy.

On mainland Europe Ryanair has also been given financial support by regional governments to fly to their airports. Thankfully the European Commission decided last week to address the free ride that O’Leary has enjoyed over recent years.

It really is entertaining to hear O’Leary’s rhetoric about ‘free markets’ on this when underlying it all is an de facto massive subsidy from public funds. And not just our state but all states.

Almost any remedy, but particularly that proposed by the Commission to include aviation within the Emissions Trading Syste, can only rectify what – under a cold analysis – would be a major distortion of the market to tilt it away from other forms of transport towards air travel. And the costs of all this, at least initially? Well, as Cuffe notes, these will only kick in under the new proposals in 2012 and range from €5 to €40 a return journey. Now perhaps on the margins RyanAir operates under that spells the end of international ‘cheap’ aviation, but beyond those circles… it’s not outrageous.

I also agree entirely with Cuffe as regards some measures to reduce emissions:

Unlike other emissions, most flights are not as necessary as activities such as heating your home or growing food. Our greenhouse gas emissions are increasingly a contributory factor to the weather extremes that cause drought, flooding and the loss of lives in the developing world.

…

Airline emissions exact a high price on the planet, and jobs in the industry come at a high price. O’Leary stated that it takes a thousand flights a year to sustain a single job. At a rough tally that’s 100,000 kilos of CO2 emissions.

We must rethink airline subsidies, and concentrate more on creating employment in the new sunrise industries that use less carbon to create more jobs. O’Leary feels a switch to nuclear power might save the day, but even a doubling of nuclear power worldwide would only lead to a 5 per cent reduction in global CO2 emissions, and his arguments distract from the need to conserve energy and use it wisely.

…

There are measures that can be taken to reduce airline emissions. Changes in the amount of air traffic control areas could ensure aircraft are not forced to zigzag around Europe. Reducing the military air space currently out of bounds to commercial planes could allow straight line flights between destinations and save fuel. Distributing aircraft loads more efficiently can also reduce emissions.

That said while I like his final thoughts there is a small problem with them. For he suggests that:

There are alternatives to flying. I’ve rediscovered the art of slow travel over the last few years.

You can take a late morning ferry from Dún Laoghaire, and connect with a Virgin train at Holyhead that has you in the centre of London by early evening. Should you wish, a 10-minute walk from Euston to St Pancras railway station allows you to catch a Eurostar train that takes less than two hours to central Brussels.

This is true. I have done it myself from Dublin to Rome and back. The Eurostar is a joy, sleepers comfortable, although not necessarily the best way to actually fall asleep in. And he is absolutely right,

On the train and ferry you can enjoy a full meal, get some work done or enjoy the view. You can even stretch your legs without disturbing fellow-passengers. You never have to remove your shoes, stand in line for more than a few moments or empty your drink into a bin before you board.

If you reserve a seat on some trains you’re greeted by name at the carriage door. The lower carbon option is a remarkably pleasant alternative to plane travel.

But… there is a problem and that is one of cost and time.

It’s not cheap to travel trans-Europe by train. It’s not horrendously expensive, but it is more expensive than flights – although a caveat, I’m talking here about flights from Ireland to other points. How much more expensive? Well consider the following…

A useful resource, and one I’ve turned to in the past is Seat61, which is arguably the single best means of determining how to travel overland by train and ferry anywhere on earth. For those of us apprehensive about flying, although I’m more or less over that, it’s great. For anyone who is just interested in thought experiments, experiencing something a little more visceral in terms of the travel experience or more environmentally friendly transport it is essential.
Using their links it’s easy to calculate the costs of travelling on any given day, so how about we decide we’ll travel tomorrow Sunday 20th of July.

By RyanAir (incidentally, an airline I’ve never used… for various reasons) it would cost to fly to Paris return on the 20th July and returning 27th July €296.14 for a flight (07.05 outbound to Paris, 22.50 inbound to Dublin the following Sunday). €296.14. Quite a bit of money.

Let’s travel sloooowwwww….

Dublin Ferry Port – London Euston 44 euro

0845 – 1627 (change Crewe)

Walk down the road to St. Pancras keeping in mind the 30 minute minimum check-in time for the Eurostar.

Eurostar

St. Pancras to Paris Nord

18.00 – 21.20 149 GBP

And returning…

Paris Nord to St. Pancras

09.13 – 10.36 (earlier train at 8.07 if you’re frantic to ensure the connection is made) 69.50 GBP

London Euston – Dublin Ferry Port 44 euro

1146 – 1904 (change Crewe)

The total costs?

Eurostar is €275 (218.50 GBP)
Dublin – London – Dublin €88

€363 total

So, almost €80 more expensive than flying.

If one were to book say months in advance, September non-flexible fares drop to £80 return on the Eurostar… clearly moving this into a more reasonable €188 in total.

However, if you book RyanAir it would cost for the same dates in September no more than €51.15.

There are obviously other fares to be taken into account. Transport from airport into city centre, cost of food on day long journeys by train. And then there is always the possibility of delays and cancellations. In 2004, once again trying to make it to the Eurostar I had a most – ahem – interesting day travelling to London after the Stena ferry was out of action. This included a dash to Dublin Ferry Port, a wait while Irish Ferries decided whether or not to accept the near mutinous passengers from Stena, then, due to refurbishment a remarkable journey across central and eastern lines to get to London, barely on time to make a connection with the Eurostar. Not something I’d be keen on replicating.

Which isn’t to say it can’t be done, but it is a process dependent upon a number of elements working smoothly at every stage of the journey. Travel further onward from Paris and one is then dependent upon other national transport services doing likewise. That said, if the money is there it is worth every cent.

But this links into a broader discussion about working hours/holidays and so on. Even if the money is there a whole day from a limited holiday allocation is a whole day. An instinctive, if partially unwarranted, aversion to train travel is in part based on the sense that it is ’slow’. And that makes me wonder, in the absence of high speed links, and indeed the lack of geographic proximity to Europe whether slow travel will catch on in quite the way it might be hoped. Because if it effectively takes a full day to get to Paris, as against 90 minutes by air, then what of Barcelona or Rome (start at 9 on a Saturday, arrive in either around the same time the next morning). And if you really want the sun, and if you have a large family and are dependent upon discounts and suchlike well then these sort of proscriptions are probably so far off the scale as to be Utopian…

Which suggests that shifts in modes of transportation, time usage, holiday allocation and suchlike would be necessary before even beginning to see some change in public behaviour. And that makes me think that should the worst come to the worst people will simply be priced out of the market, and we would see much more localised travel on holidays, perhaps akin to the situation in the late 1960s before the package holiday boom took off. Oddly enough that’s the sort of world, avoiding air travel much of the time, that I’ve lived in for decades now, but I’ve never noticed any great appetite amongst others to join me…

It doesn’t have to be that way, and Cuffe implicitly appears to acknowledge that aviation will continue into the foreseeable future – nor do the proposals from the Commission ban aviation. But it’s a sobering thought, isn’t it? Not so much slow travel as almost no travel.