To think we need to increase taxes on flights. If you fly more you pay more.

[ThereWillBeAdequateFood]

Just that really. I think something like 70% of all flights are taken by 30% of people.

I think we need to move to a system where the tax increases the more you fly. Something like (per year)

10% tax for the first 1000 miles
20% tax for the next 1000 miles
30% tax for the next 1000 miles
40% tax for the next 1000 miles (etc).

AIBU? Should we tax flights more?

The reality is that we all will have to make changes to protect the environment- it's a mindset that presents difficulties because it does mean we have to change how we do many many things (and those things are super convenient for our modern lifestyle). No one really wants to pay more for flying or not eat blueberries flown in from Chile. But it will have to be done

Really well put AuntI

"Where does that taxing end though? We should really be taxing cars for the damage they do. But how do you do that? By mileage? By the car itself? Both?"
I agree. We switched to a diesel car and reduced our road tax from over 200 to only 20 pounds per annum. It turns out the info on diesel cars was misleading but we, as diesel drivers, are still paying that poultry amount of tax. The government should increase it to at least the same rate as petrol cars, if not more, to incentivise drivers to get rid of diesel vehicles.

So, increase annual road tax on the vehicle and increase duty on diesel too.

And yes we will be getting rid of our diesel car asap.

I need to dig out the stats, but I think climate change lobby are suggesting a reduction rather than an outright ban: a short-haul flight once every three years and a long-haul flight every ten. My best guess is that taxes will go up as the carbon cap and trade rules tighten and you will see more airlines offsetting their carbon footprint. I do feel sorry for anyone who has an overseas relative but after seeing the Australian bushfires on TV, I don't think we have luxury of sitting on our hands. I would personally rather take the train to Europe now - it usually works out the same or quicker than queuing in the airport. It's sometimes cheaper too and that's where the real arguement will be won or lost.

Whilst aviation does make up a smaller proportion of the transport total, there's some evidence that it might be more damaging as we are directly injecting carbon in the atmosphere at a higher altitude.

||www.gao.gov/mobile/products/RCED-00-57||

Having said all of that, I do think flying has been made the carbon bogeyman. Posters above have correctly made the point that cutting car usage and food miles will go a long way towards zero carbon too.

Perhaps it should be based on why people are flying. My Mum is virtually my only relative and lives in the UK, I am in NZ and feel have no choice but to do several long haul trips to UK every year.

^^this actually annoys me. People choose to live thousands of miles away from each other and therefore have more justification than others for flying.

I do understand where you are coming from and would feel the same, but the idea that some people can fly thousands of miles while others are criticised for taking a family holiday doesn't sit well with me and is grossly unfair, you don't have more right to pollute than anyone else.

Realistically stopping flying entirely is not a way forward for anyone. The totally unnecessary ie very short haul/ domestic is what should be massively discouraged along with private jets and pointless travelling for business meetings. We need a decent, affordable train service to compensate though including to ports.

Deciding some people have the right to fly to see relatives and others don't because they are only going to Tenerife on a beach holiday definitely isn't the way forward.

There needs to be a change of attitude towards work travelling. I know so many people who regularly jet off round the world for own or two days for meetings. These meeting can and should be done on internet nowadays. Really no excuse. A cost/tax to the employer would help with this

You have to provide details for customs for all flights overseas (advance passenger information), so it would be simple to have a tax that depends on the number of flights you make per year. I'd also have something that considers the alternative rail options where they exist, so London-Paris or London- Belgium or the Netherlands would have higher taxes as there are train options.

The tax should also be put to environmental projects, ideally in the UK.

No-one wants to give up the luxuries enjoyed which contribute to climate change. What would be needed to really offset environmental disaster is a ban on certain products, imports, certain forms of transport and a legal limit on the number of children we are allowed to have. It would take a very brave government to impose those restrictions on us and it would probably result in civil war.

We all need to go back to a simpler way of life and give up our luxurious lifestyles.

Completely agree with this idea. Listened to a great podcast about the stats and the research done.

It actually suggested that people taking one flight a year would find it significantly cheaper because of the new tax structure.

Lots of flights are obscenely cheap. £30 flights to Europe should not be a thing.

The same goes for lots of meat, exotic fruit and vegetables, milk, clothing etc.

Tackling climate change properly would mean that many of us live much less luxurious lives than we do now.

But people aren't willing to do that, and the large corporations know that as long as they keep giving us bargain flights, convenience goods, and cheap fast fashion people will take it.

Over the years we've become too used to having holidays abroad, meat every day, strawberries in the dead of winter, and throwing away clothes and shoes rather than repairing them.

We also need to be having fewer children than we are.

Everything needs to change. Whether it will or not is another matter.

That just isn't realistic at all unless you are advocating dictatorship.

Planting trees would be a more sensible and workable move.

@Teateaandmoretea in NZ our energy is almost entirely from renewable resources. Our food travels fewer miles than it does in the UK and where I live we have to collect our own water.

In NZ our carbon footprint is significantly lower than the UK so any long haul flights to see relatives is offset and more.

That just isn't realistic at all unless you are advocating dictatorship

I can see your point. As shown here people aren’t willing to vote for policies that curb their lifestyle. (I’m not suggesting a dictatorship by the way).

It actually suggested that people taking one flight a year would find it significantly cheaper because of the new tax structure.

Surely this would run the danger of the 70% taking more flights 🤷🏻‍♀️.

Would it be carried over? So I didn't fly at all in 2019 but am flying twice in 2020 that surely comes to the same thing?

A pilot plant in Canada funded by Bill Gates foundation has found that you can manufacture fossil fuel replacements from sunlight (solar electricity) and air (extracting the CO2) for about 1 USD per litre. Aviation fuel when I last googled was 0.45 USD per litres. So if we put a tax-per-air-mile on flying to pay the difference we could pay for planes to use carbon neutral fuel.

I've just done a back-of-the-envelope calculation using rough figures for 747 fuel efficiency, and the extra cost (that we'd have to collect through tax) would be about £1.60 for every hundred air-miles that one person travelled. So the extra tax on a round trip from London to Barcelona would be about £23. For London to New York and back, the extra cost is £111. That's not much of a price to pay for going carbon-neutral, is it?

The implementation isn't as simple as putting a tax directly on fossil fuel, as that would only work properly if all countries implemented at the same time. Until there is an international agreement, we need to tax tax-resident individuals on all their air miles, not just the ones that involve UK departures and landings. Otherwise they could travel via a hub airport abroad to avoid some of the tax.

The biggest issue in the world today as a pollutant is Concrete. It is the most destructive product on the planet....yet everyone I talk to about it is totally in the dark.

The idea that business that involves flying to other countries can be done on the internet/Skype etc is bonkers. Walk around your house look at where virtually everything ( and the component parts ) you have is made and the majority is made in China, clothes, Christmas lights, dishwasher, washing up bowl, light fittings, batteries, zips in clothes, door handles, floor tiles, curtains, toaster...so so many things have component parts from China. Now ask how these get to the UK? Buyers go to massive "fairs" in Canton to Buy these items and then compliance auditors visit factories regularly from the UK to ensure the items are Legal and Safe.....and then people want a new style/version/upgrade and it all starts again.

www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/feb/25/concrete-the-most-destructive-material-on-earth

nakedavengeragainFine, my point is that having relatives abroad doesn't give people more right to pollute the planet and take more flights than others. It isn't an individual judgement on you or anyone else.

Do complete away with income tax & instead tax the services individuals use, with an extra levy for environmental issues such as old card etc

There is absolutely no need for anyone to fly less. They just need to pay slightly more so carbon-neutral fuel can be used.

Sorry for shouting, but after looking back through the thread it's clear that environmentalists are as usual working hard to defeat their own cause, by painting the sacrifices needed as much bigger than they actually are, causing people to choose the option of doing nothing.

Just gonna leave this here.

I think YANBU, but, 90% of flights I take (and I do about 8 return flights per quarter) are paid for by someone else.

You could double those costs and I’d still fly. But the cost would ultimately be passed on to consumers. I don’t think the public are ready for that.

So my family live in another continent, I fly to see them once or twice a year as my father Cabot fly anymore. My grandmother is dying so I will probably do more trips next year to see her and you wish to tax me, more? On top of the thousands I already have to pay to fly? To see my dying grandmother?

Surely this would run the danger of the 70% taking more flights 🤷🏻‍♀️

Well, no, because then the expense would really ramp up so they wouldn’t be able to afford it again.

The basic idea was that one flight (Or distance, can’t remember) was cheaper tax wise than now, then the second about the same, then it really really increases. It works because the vast majority of flights are leisure flights taken by a very small proportion of people.

And if you saved all your ‘cheap’ flights to take in the future you’d still only be taking 2 per year on average, so the same (actually better if we discount pollution in the future as less likely the same way we discount cash to reflect the fact that the future is less certain - eg you may actually not take those flights according to plans for a variety of reasons)

It’s only one of the things that need doing. Realistically, we can’t get into this ‘well NZ food miles are less so it balances out’. We need to do a lot in every sector and more if we’re going to sort this to a manageable level.

Everyone should get a personal carbon footprint allowance per year. That should be small but reasonable but you can spend it as you wish.

For example if you decide to have a child that's your carbon allowance taken up for 10 years and you are in negative so you have to make significant and permanent changes in your life that offset that.

And the point is that population growth is the single biggest factor to impact climate change. People who have children (and the attendant landfill plastic, short car journeys, water and electric use) should be paying, not someone who is child-free, living virtually off grid or using renewable energy but who takes a long haul flight once a year.

You could double those costs and I’d still fly. But the cost would ultimately be passed on to consumers. I don’t think the public are ready for that

Or another company works out how to do it without all those air miles (in some industries) and is cheaper for consumers.

For example, my neighbour works in Oslo but lives in London. Flies twice a week. If the company had to pay extra for that maybe they would no longer allow that kind of flexibility and employs someone who lives there instead.