Madam, - Ulrich Schulte-Strathaus (September 26th) should be a member of Fianna Fáil: his ability to concoct stories and use magical numbers reminds me of Bertie Ahern's evidence at the Mahon tribunal last week.
Mr Schulte-Strathaus and others in the aviation industry continue to claim that "emissions from the aviation sector are today approximately 2 per cent of total global CO2 emissions, and it is estimated that in 2050 they will account for 3 per cent of total global emissions". This claim is manifestly untrue and deliberately misleading.
The IPCC's aviation report was published in 1999, using the then most up-to-date data (from 1992). The claim that global CO2 emissions from aviation were 2 per cent of the total was true - in 1992. Since then global air traffic has virtually doubled. The 2050 claim is also inaccurate: the IPCC used an ensemble of forecasts predicting the range of emissions increases by 2050 would be 1.6 to 10 times the 1992 value.
According to the European Commission, aviation currently accounts for between 4 per cent and 6 per cent of Europe's emissions and is growing at around 6 per cent a year. By 2012 the growth in emissions will cancel out more than a quarter of the EU's Kyoto Protocol reductions, while the impact of the Open Skies agreement could cancel out the savings made as a result of including aviation in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme.
To ensure we limit the impact of climate change to a rise of 2°C probably requires an 80 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. The aviation industry is splitting straws and engaging in propaganda, diversion and denial. - Yours, etc,
JARLATH MOLLOY, (PhD student, aviation and climate change), Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Imperial College, London SW7.