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Flying has received a lot of attention from the media over the last few months. Here are some facts to keep in mind when thinking about flying in terms of greenhouse gas emissions.

Currently, domestic aviation accounts for around 5.1 Mt (almost 1%) of total Australian greenhouse gas emissions. The contribution from domestic aviation to total emissions is predicted to increase to just over 1% by 2020 (8.7 Mt).

As a comparison, passenger vehicles are the highest contributing mode from the transport sector to Australia’s total greenhouse emissions and contribute 44 Mt or 8% of total greenhouse gas emissions. All transport sector contributions are shown in Table 1.

Table 1 Emissions from the transport sector 2005

The greatest growth in transport emissions within the transport subsectors between 1990 and 2005 was in domestic air travel, reaching a growth of 76% between the same period with an average annual growth rate in emissions of 5.1% (Figure 1).

Fig 1 Growth in transport emissions by mode (1990–2005)

Given that domestic air accounts for 6% of total transport emissions, and road transport accounts for 88%, it could reasonably be argued that any investment in reducing emissions from air travel should be tempered by the fact that investments in reducing greenhouse gas emissions from road transport are likely to deliver larger quantum of greenhouse reduction (assuming similar levels of proportional greenhouse gas abatement effectiveness).

AGO (2006) Transport Sector Greenhouse Gas Emissions Projections, Canberra

AGO (2007) Transport Sector Greenhouse Gas Emissions Projections, Canberra http://www.greenhouse.gov.au/projections/pubs/transport2007.pdf

AGO (2007) National Greenhouse Gas Inventory 2005, Canberra http://www.greenhouse.gov.au/inventory/2005/index.html