Germany considers limiting the number of flights per citizen

Green MP Dieter Janecek has proposed a law banning Germans from flying internationally more than three times a year, counting as one each flight, the outbound and the return. Each citizen would have three certificates, so that whoever must exceed that limit could buy these certificates from those citizens who do not fly or who fly less.

The objective would be to reduce the level of emissions of polluting gases and generate a market for flight rights similar to the emissions market that already exists among countries committed to climate protection.

But the most palpable real effect would be that air transport, which had reached its definitive democratization at the beginning of the twenty-first century thanks to low-cost companies, would once again be reserved for an elite, only those who could afford the flights made more expensive by the lower demand along with the necessary bonuses for it.

At the moment, the only thing Janecek has achieved is a catalogue of angry reactions from the rest of the political parties and also from the popular newspaper Bild, which has titled: “The Greens want to take away our holidays in Mallorca”. Even so, it should be noted that the green proposals enjoy growing acceptance in Germany and that in the polls they are already the second most voted party, with 20%, after Merkel’s CDU. In some polls they even reach the first place.

This idea is part of a trend that was born in the Nordic countries and that is spreading rapidly in Germany. In Sweden, the “Flight-free 2019” campaign was born, initiated by Maja Rosen and Lotta Hammar, to which some 7,800 people have already joined through Facebook and another 1,000 through its website westayontheground.org. The participants vow not to travel by plane throughout the year and are convinced that if they reach 100,000 they will have achieved a significant change in emissions, a fact that scientific sources refute.

Another well-known case of revulsion to air transport is the Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra, one of the most important in Sweden, which has taken the decision to veto from 2020 all visiting conductors or soloists who arrive in the country by plane, giving way to what has been announced as the “first season of sustainable orchestra in the world”.

Christoph Bals, political director of the independent organization Germanwatch, points out that “flying is by far the most climate-damaging way of traveling, so it makes a lot of sense to consider whether every plane trip is really necessary.” According to the German Environment Agency, a round-trip flight from Germany to the Maldives generates a climate impact of more than five tons of carbon dioxide per person. For an equivalent emission you can travel 30,000 kilometers in a medium car. These are the same arguments that lead the radical German left-wing party Die Linke to defend the nationalization of airlines.

Bernd Riexinger, leader of Die Linke, has proposed the expropriation of airlines and state ownership of air transport to prevent travel from being “irresponsibly cheap” and detrimental to employees and the climate. Riexinger stresses that an industry with “such dramatic social consequences” cannot be deregulated and governed only by the market. “Airlines must be in the hands of the government, just like the energy industry or the railway,” he claims.

Riexinger further emphasizes that “capitalism is incompatible with environmental protection,” arguing that one hundred companies are responsible for 71% of CO2 emissions worldwide.

“I voted for the Greens and I think I will do it again in the next elections,” confesses Mathilda, about to board a plane at Berlin’s Tegel airport bound for Mallorca, “but this seems to me an exaggeration.” Mathilda would agree, however, to require an extraordinary tax rate from airlines because it is a particularly polluting business, even though that measure ultimately had an impact on ticket prices and consumers’ ability to keep flying. “Paying a little more because you’re polluting I consider fair, but I don’t take things to the extreme of ending up with activities that are part of our lifestyle,” he says.

A majority of German citizens, on the other hand, support Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Soder’s proposal to fix climate protection as the state’s task in the Constitution, according to a poll by the YouGov opinion institute. 58% of respondents have stated that the idea seems “good” and even “very good”, while 11% have indicated that it was “bad” or “very bad”. Among 18- to 24-year-olds, approval was even higher, with 79% in favor.

Fuetne: ABC