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?

Personally i feel our biggest problem is the decimation-of the rain forests.

The planets lungs are down to literally about 10% of what they were. The governments responsible for this happening need to be taken to account. Sadly these are poor country's and people's livelihoods are going to suffer. I actually foresee war over these issues.

Palm oil needs to be reduced. Timber from these forests need to be highlighted so we can make informed choices not to use it. Farming on this land needs to be reduced

Western countries need to start planting new forest to help combat this.

I can't see a few flights raising more tax can possibly make up for the loss of the carbon reducing properties of billions of trees. 😥.

@lovepickledlimes The same nonsense argument. I'm fairly sure there will be no state pensions by the time I retire. I've certainly planned for there not to be. And what a damning indictment of the shallow capitalist society we live in that we must destroy the planet by adding more humans to ensure we can continue to destroy the planet in our old age by consuming more.

If people are genuine about climate change then we need to stop people having as many children. In every country.

If we carry on as we are then 'pensions' will be the least of our worries.

YANBU and let's use the tax to fund reliable and accessible public transport, bike paths, and subsidise electric vehicles.....

AND put an environmental-impact tax on meat while we're at it.

The middle classes won't like this and they are already doing their bit by not using plastic straws and taking their children to shouty Greta protests in Central London.

The uk is terrible for high costs of public transport also. From where I live, I can take a 5 hour train journey, costing €24 peak time, that I can buy and pay that price before or even on the train. In the summer a train journey london to exeter was quoting me £110 one way looking 1 week beforehand. Cheaper to drive

@nakedavengeragain most people I know already have smaller families as it just costs too much and you want to tax them further????

Taxing flights is ridiculous. They already cost a fortune. We already pay tax on absolutely everything these days so why would you insist people pay even more?

Do you genuinely think that flights ‘cost a fortune’? Do you understand how much cheaper leisure flights are now, compared to 25 years ago? Of course you don’t.

How much do you think flights should cost? £5 a head?

As a regular flyer I’m not against increasing tax. But i don’t agree with a sliding scale as it’s much harder to administer. This means more cost, admin, and potential for loopholes. Most of my flights are for work.... would that mean work used my allowance up and so a single personal flight a year was proportionately more expensive than if I didn’t fly for work?

A sliding scale doesn’t reflect the actual environmental cost. Better to make it a cost per flight - eg £20 for every flight + x pence per mile flown.

I agree, OP.

People who have children

Bit of a flaw with that, isn't there? If no-one had children, humans would die out in just over 100 years. Which would probably be the best thing for the planet, but I think what we are talking about here is the preservation of human life on the planet. Not saving the planet, but saving ourselves.

No we shouldn't! People work damn hard and deserve to be able to afford a week in the sun as a reward. Why try and price even more people out of it?

@lovepickledlimes no. I never said that. As I said give everyone a yearly carbon allowance you cannot exceed but to spend as you wish. If you have a child then you are in negative by 10 years already so you need to make significant lifestyle changes: no flights, no single use plastic, reduced water and electricity use, seasonal local fruit and veg only, no short car journeys etc etc until you have repaid the carbon you have introduced.

No we shouldn't! People work damn hard and deserve to be able to afford a week in the sun as a reward. Why try and price even more people out of it?

It would be cheaper for these people to have one flight....

no. I never said that. As I said give everyone a yearly carbon allowance you cannot exceed but to spend as you wish. If you have a child then you are in negative by 10 years already so you need to make significant lifestyle changes: no flights, no single use plastic, reduced water and electricity use, seasonal local fruit and veg only, no short car journeys etc etc until you have repaid the carbon you have introduced

So do children only get their allowance at age 18?

Bit of a flaw with that, isn't there? If no-one had children, humans would die out in just over 100 years. Which would probably be the best thing for the planet, but I think what we are talking about here is the preservation of human life on the planet. Not saving the planet, but saving ourselves

There's zero chance of this happening, of course, as you'll know. We should absolutely be encouraging people to have no kids/one kid by relieving them of the costs associated with 2+.

If people are genuine about climate change then we need to stop people having as many children. In every country

In most of the world, the birth rate is below replacement level. With wider access to education, birth rates everywhere will drop and eventually the population will as well. If we aren't half wiped out by environmental disaster first.

So who should be allowed to have children now then?

@Binkybix it would but why one a year?
My sister lives abroad should I never go see her? What about people with relatives like that?

As a regular flyer I’m not against increasing tax. But i don’t agree with a sliding scale as it’s much harder to administer. This means more cost, admin, and potential for loopholes. Most of my flights are for work.... would that mean work used my allowance up and so a single personal flight a year was proportionately more expensive than if I didn’t fly for work?

You are contradicting yourself in one paragraph.

On the one hand, you are complaining that people will work around a scheme like the one suggested by the OP using ‘loopholes’. In the next sentence you are complaining that you’d have to pay more for your personal leisure flights because no ‘loopholes’ to accommodate your business travel would exist.

But look over there, those people are having children sounds a great way to deflect responsibility for your own behaviour change in reducing how much you fly.

@Parker231

"Flying isn’t a luxury. It’s the only way of seeing our families and why should I be taxed more to do that?".
Flying is a luxury. Society has become confused about what are necessities and what are luxuries. Must products we own are luxuries - cars, bicycles, Xboxes, mobile phones, any phone, washing machine, dishwasher, tumble dryer, cooker hood, microwave, iPods, radios etc etc. We have all had our lives improved by their existence but they are still luxuries.

If you live in a different country to your relatives then, presumably, someone moved at some stage. They made a lifestyle decision that now means visiting is long distance. Yes, I accept you obviously want to see your family (I'm not saying you shouldn't at all but just pointing out that flying to another country to see family is not a basic need of life but a luxury as a result of someone's lifestyle decision). If flying is polluting the atmosphere for us all then, yes, it may need to be taxed more highly to finance initiatives to combat climate change.

YANBU

No one has a 'right' to travel abroad on holiday or visit family who live far away. And there are alternatives - just less convenient and more time consuming. Also technology means we can see and talk to people via the internet any time of the day or night.

The only way to stop people doing things is to either make it illegal or make it too expensive for every day. Your solution seems very sensible.

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.

Maybe flights should be rationed. People (like me!) who hardly ever fly could trade our unused flight allocation with people who want to fly more.

Once again, rail travel needs to be cheaper. We want to go to Vienna and are happy to spend a couple of days travelling, but it costs hundreds to go by train. We could fly for about £50 return, which is probably less than it would cost me to get to Milton Keynes and back.

Bit of a flaw with that, isn't there? If no-one had children, humans would die out in just over 100 years. Which would probably be the best thing for the planet, but I think what we are talking about here is the preservation of human life on the planet. Not saving the planet, but saving ourselves.*
*
And this is the problem. Humans almost have to die out to save the planet. The planet is of infinitesimal importance compared to humans. If we care about the planet we have to stop believing ourselves to be the most important beings on Earth.

The fact people are telling me they have had children to pay my pension is laughable. It's pure selfishness. Faffing about taxing flights or recycling bottles is a mere drop in the ocean compared to the carbon tonnage another human adds to the atmosphere. Stop having children. The ones you've got are more likely to die choking in an inhuman climate than drawing a bloody pension.

No, not everybody has a choice about where they fly to. My parents emigrated and I struggle to afford the flights, with higher taxes I'd not be able to go.

@Binkybix it would but why one a year?
My sister lives abroad should I never go see her? What about people with relatives like that?

Because that’s the way the incentive system works - people get to fly once (or maybe even twice) a year, then it gets very expensive. It works because most flights are taken by a small number of people, who fly for leisure.

I have relatives like that! You could see her a couple of times a year. Beyond that you would need to choose between paying more and missing out on something else.

We do need to reduce emissions. We really do.

Sorry bold fail