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French lawmakers approve a ban on short domestic flights

reuters.com

211–220 of 361 posts

Re: French lawmakers approve a ban on short domestic flights

#211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd agree in terms of distance and traffic between the two cities. However, the long, relatively severe winters would probably add some complications to high speed rail.

Check out the rail to Bergen, in Norway. Shot in 4K. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atyvdC15HFA

Calgary/Edmonton seem to get about 2x as much snow as Bergen (~48" vs ~24"). Also, temperature fall much lower in Alberta than in Norway...

Re: French lawmakers approve a ban on short domestic flights

#212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One issue with France is that their train system is very Paris-centric. I mean it's not just the rail network; it's _all_ of France. Some of that is unsurprising given a 1/5th of the population live in Paris and the surrounding area. A significant amount of business travel from outside of Paris resultantly ends up being to Paris. There's definitely an argument that investing in infrastructure that isn't centred on…

also, France has been Paris centric since well, forever? the French bureaucracy and political system is very centralised and has been since the French revolution. this directly ties into the idea of the state as an institution in French culture in a lot of subtle ways aswell.

> ... and has been since the French revolution

Even before.

> ... his directly ties into the idea of the state as an institution in French culture in a lot of subtle ways aswell.

Especially in the parisian elites disdain toward pretty much anybody else in the country.

ps: exiled french/parisian speaking.

Re: French lawmakers approve a ban on short domestic flights

#213
post #8

Is short domestic flights in France that much of a carbon producers? I mean is the measure just a fig leaf or is it a real step in the right direction? Checking French sources, the only lines are apparently between Paris and Nantes, Lyon and Bordeaux.

A large proportion of the carbon emissions from flights come from takeoff (you have to haul the plane, full of fuel, up through the gravitational potential)

I was more asking in the context of the French carbon production, not just the airlines

Re: French lawmakers approve a ban on short domestic flights

#214

I'm not an economist, but wouldn't it have been better to tax the carbon emissions? If you could offset the carbon emissions for 10 EUR, maybe add 12 EUR to the price of a ticket and use that money to buy carbon offsets? That way those who still want it can still fly, and we're at net negative emissions.

>I'm not an economist The last thing we need is the insights of an economist when it comes to solutions to climate change. It's thanks to economists that we're still dealing with the problem in the first place!

Most economists do not support currect decisions made by politicians

Re: French lawmakers approve a ban on short domestic flights

#215

I'm not an economist, but wouldn't it have been better to tax the carbon emissions? If you could offset the carbon emissions for 10 EUR, maybe add 12 EUR to the price of a ticket and use that money to buy carbon offsets? That way those who still want it can still fly, and we're at net negative emissions.

That's my thought as well. But I'd be most concerned with the complex calculation that people have to do around mobility, that dilute these subtle price nudges.

There's no apples to apples price comparisons that can be easily made, where say car vs plane is say 30 vs 42 euro, and this 12 euro tax clearly doubles the price difference. Car trips are typically priced as a per-trip cost that only counts fuel and sometimes parking, whereas air tickets essentially include everything from airport to airport.

But what's left out for the car trip is the cost of ownership (depreciation/maintenance), taxes, insurance. It can't be compared to a flight ticket very easily for most people unless they make a quick Excel sheet and plug in some numbers. And even if you include all those other costs of ownership, how much can be attributed to that single trip by car to replace that flight, if the car is used for other trips, too?

The same calculus goes for time as it does for price. An airport to airport travel time cannot be directly compared to a door-to-door car trip. You'd have to include trips from and to the airports as well as the boarding/security/checkin stuff, as well as a safety buffer not needed for car trips.

Not to mention the experience differences, which are difficult to value. Should a plane ticket be compared to a taxi, because it includes the price of the chauffeur in both cases? Obviously not, yet we also can't just ignore the cost of having to drive concentrated for hours yourself versus sitting in a plane.

In short, while raising the price by 12 euro tax of course does have an impact, but it may not get the impact an economist or policy-maker would expect. It may just go into a very muddy calculated comparison between car/plane (or otherwise).

Second, the tax shouldn't even be such a granular thing. Domestic flights have far greater greenhouse gas emissions than bus, train or car travel. If air was say 30% more poluting than a train, then nudges with taxes would help. But if it's the equivalent of 250gr of Co2 per km travelled [0], and the Eurostar train is 6gr and coach is 27gr then banning seems to be the quickest solution. There's good reasons to say that if mobility option A pollutes 40x more than option B, that you ban A instead of trying to nudge consumption via taxes.

[0] https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-49349566

Re: French lawmakers approve a ban on short domestic flights

#217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quotation needed. All studies show the impact of flying as being much higher than driving, even when shared.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_avia... > in 2018, CO2 emissions averaged 88 grams of CO2 per revenue passenger per km. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_tran... > In Europe, the European Commission enforced that from 2015 all new cars registered shall not emit more than an average of 0.130 kg of CO2 per kilometre (kg CO2/km). The target is that by 2021 the average emissi…

I think you are comparing unrelated things. The average car ride is thousands of times shorter than the average flight, and transports more than one person. You cannot just compare the average emissions of cars and planes and make the conclusion that it makes sense to choose a plane over a car to reduce your carbon footprint.

And even when you make this comparison with sensible data, the car still wins: https://ourworldindata.org/travel-carbon-footprint

Re: French lawmakers approve a ban on short domestic flights

#218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check out the rail to Bergen, in Norway. Shot in 4K. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atyvdC15HFA

A quick search on Google tells me that train goes at 160 km/h. Not exactly high speed. It looks like they don't run into too many problems with weather related cancelations or delays though [0]. [0] https://www.globalrailwayreview.com/article/74614/norway-rai...

Amtrak generally averages about half that, so it seems pretty good.

Re: French lawmakers approve a ban on short domestic flights

#219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A quick search on Google tells me that train goes at 160 km/h. Not exactly high speed. It looks like they don't run into too many problems with weather related cancelations or delays though [0]. [0] https://www.globalrailwayreview.com/article/74614/norway-rai...

Amtrak generally averages about half that, so it seems pretty good.

The Edmonton to Calgary route is straight, flat, and has a mostly sparsely populated path. I'd hope that high speed rail under those conditions could do significantly better.

I also looked up Amtrak's speeds and found a report from 2016 saying that over half of their trains had a top speed of 160 km/h or greater.

Re: French lawmakers approve a ban on short domestic flights

#220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quotation needed. All studies show the impact of flying as being much higher than driving, even when shared.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_avia... > in 2018, CO2 emissions averaged 88 grams of CO2 per revenue passenger per km. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_tran... > In Europe, the European Commission enforced that from 2015 all new cars registered shall not emit more than an average of 0.130 kg of CO2 per kilometre (kg CO2/km). The target is that by 2021 the average emissi…

If also air distance calculated as the crow flies vs actual car km the numbers will be more air travel favirable
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