Planes and planet-warming pollution

Airplanes could generate 43 gigatonnes of planet-warming pollution through 2050, consuming almost 5 percent of the world’s remaining carbon budget, according to a new Center report.

Aircraft emit staggering amounts of CO2, the most prevalent manmade greenhouse gas. In fact they currently account for some 11 percent of CO2 emissions from U.S. transportation sources and 3 percent of the United States’ total CO2 emissions. All told, the United States is responsible for nearly half of worldwide CO2 emissions from aircraft.

In addition to CO2, aircraft emit nitrogen oxides, known as NOx, which contribute to the formation of ozone, another greenhouse gas. Emissions of NOx at high altitudes result in greater concentrations of ozone than ground-level emissions. Aircraft also emit water vapor at high altitudes, creating condensation trails or “contrails" — visible cloud lines that form in cold, humid atmospheres and contribute to the warming impacts of aircraft emissions. The persistent formation of contrails is associated with increased cirrus cloud cover, which also warms the Earth’s surface. Aircrafts’ high-altitude emissions have a greater global warming impact than they would if the emissions were released at ground level.

Read the Centre for Biological Diversity story - “Aircraft emit staggering amounts of CO2, the most prevalent manmade greenhouse gas.”

Call for climate change discussion at Brisbane's G20

Dr Thomas E. Lovejoy -
climate change must be
discussed at G20 Forum.

Thomas E. Lovejoy believes the world needs to act now on addressing climate change.

The world renowned conservation biologist who coined the phrase “biodiversity” in the 1980s, is presently in Sydney for the IUCN Parks Congress, believes it is inevitable and critically important that climate be discussed at Brisbane’s G20 forum.

Dr Lovejoy has said biodiversity should be high on the agenda at the G20 this week in Australia because it could help deliver a more sustainable economic system and mitigate climate change.

He is a Senior Fellow at the United Nations Foundation and University Professor in the Environmental Science and Policy department at George Mason University.

Dr Thomas E. Lovejoy directed the World Wildlife Fund-US program from 1973 to 1987 and was responsible for its scientific, Western Hemisphere, and tropical forest orientation.

From 1985 to 1987, he served as the fund’s executive vice president and he is generally credited with having brought the tropical forest problem to the fore as a public issue, and is one of the main protagonists for the science and conservation of biological diversity.

He was the first person to use the term biological diversity in 1980 and made the first projection of global extinction rates in the Global 2000 Report to the U.S. President that same year.

The conservationist was interviewed on Radio National this morning – “Biodiversity should be on G20 Agenda: Thomas Lovejoy”.