Pigs might fly: Australian aviation’s delusional emissions future

by Mark Carter, first published at Pearls and Irritations

Australian aviation is in the news again. Having ripped off passengers, illegally sacked workers, and impacted the health of residents under airport flight paths, the industry has now received $30m from taxpayers to manufacture “sustainable aviation fuel” (SAF). And investors and airlines are clamouring for more.

Having “committed to net zero emissions by 2050”, or Net Zero 2050, (Aviation Green Paper, p.1) the federal government says sustainable aviation fuel will help maximise “aviation’s contribution” (Aviation Green Paper, p.73).

So, yes. Pigs might fly. Literally and metaphorically.

Literally as pig fat in SAF. And metaphorically because the government’s emissions reduction proposals for aviation can never make flying climate safe.

As warming accelerates and 1.5°C is breached faster than forecast, Australian Government stumbles on climate risks

 by David Spratt and Ian Dunlop, first published at Pearls and Irritations

If there was shock and awe last week when the Copernicus Climate Change Service announced that global average warming over the last twelve months — February 2023 to January 2024 — had exceeded 1.5 degrees Celsius (°C), it was likely because too many people had succumbed to the predominant but delusional policy-making narrative that holding warming to 1.5–2°C was still on the cards.

What does this symbolically important moment mean for the poor understanding of climate-risk analysis by Australian governments? To begin, the idea that emissions could continue till 2050 and still achieve the 1.5–2°C goal was always a con; now it is fully exposed.