KEY POINTS:
It is not hard to see why carbon-offset schemes of the type Air New Zealand announced this week are a growth industry. Their feel-good factor makes them irresistible to companies feeling pressure to sharpen their green credentials. Few, indeed, have greater incentive than an airline burdened by this country's geographic location and the increasing realisation that air travel is one of the most carbon-intensive activities in which people engage. It is not easy, however, to see how Air New Zealand's scheme will strike a greater chord with passengers than the schemes it has copied.
British Airways had similarly high hopes of its customers three years ago when it offered them a chance to make voluntary contributions as part of a pioneering offset technique. There seemed logic to the concept. Here was the opportunity for passengers to aid projects such as forest planting to negate the polluting impact of their flight. Here, more fundamentally, was a chance for them to help reduce greenhouse gases in a way that complemented the targets set for governments under the Kyoto Protocol.
Few were impressed. Passenger participation in such schemes has, typically, been as low as 2 per cent. British Airways, having declared itself green, seemed to quickly lose interest in promoting its programme. The House of Commons environmental audit committee estimated that the average annual purchase of carbon offsets equated only to the emissions of four return flights from London to New York on a Boeing 777. This, as the committee concluded, was risible.
Air New Zealand says it has tried to avoid the mistakes of other airlines by indicating clearly where the voluntary contributions will go. The first project, for example, will be an 85,000 native tree reforestation project at Mangarara Station, near Havelock North. "We're trying to create a connection that we think will get a much better uptake than those airlines overseas where you just pay some money and you don't know where it's going," said chief executive Rob Fyfe.
Unfortunately, the disconnection runs deeper than that. The experience of overseas schemes can suggest only that most passengers feel the airlines, not they, should be bearing the financial brunt of their pollution. Or, perhaps, that if the airlines were really serious, they would incorporate the cost of carbon emissions in their fares - and be prepared to risk a backlash from passengers.
The airlines, to their credit, are taking more plausible steps. The long-term solution clearly lies in the likes of more environmentally adapted technology, better engine performance, fuel savings and superior air traffic control.
Pressure is being applied to planemakers to construct more environmentally friendly airliners. Air New Zealand is pinning much of its hopes on fuel efficiency derived from a biofuel project with Boeing and Rolls-Royce. It will not be especially comfortable about the increased questioning of the merit and sustainability of biofuels, which, in itself, provides further evidence of the ongoing difficulty of fashioning a cogent response to climate change.
While other responses are being shaped, probably over 10 to 20 years, carbon-offset schemes give airlines the chance to show they are doing something. If they are unsuccessful, they can always blame passenger apathy. In fact, however, these schemes offer only a specious response. They do no harm but will have little impact unless they are promoted far more imaginatively.
That is a shame, if only because their very presence is a reminder of the harmful effects of air travel.
