France to ban some commercial flights to fight climate change
In an effort to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions causing climate change, France will ban commercial flights on several short-haul domestic routes. France is the first country to ban short flights, which are especially bad for the environment because airplanes burn more fuel during takeoff and landing.
“I am proud that France is a pioneer in this area,” said Transport Minister Clément Beaune. He described the new policy as a “major step forward.”
The policy will enter into force in several months and will last for an initial period of three years; a review to consider extending it will begin after two years. It was adopted on the recommendation of a citizens' assembly charged with coming up with proposals to reduce emissions that was created as part of France’s 2021 law to address climate change.
The committee recommended banning flights between cities connected by rail lines if the train journey takes less than two and a half hours. France has a highly developed high-speed rail system. Its TGV trains, which started service in 1981, were the first high-speed trains on the European continent. They travel up to 187 mph, a speed that no train service in the United States can match.
Last year, during the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland, the U.S. Department of Transportation issued an Aviation Climate Action Plan with the goal of achieving net-zero emissions in the aviation industry by 2050. It proposed researching new technologies such as lower-emissions fuels and other ways of improving fuel efficiency.
Globally, air travel accounts for 2.5% of carbon dioxide emissions. Rail transportation is comparatively much more energy-efficient and eco-friendly. In 2016, the most recent year for which data is available, rail accounted for just 0.3% of total energy consumption in the European Union, while air travel was responsible for 2.2%. This is not because Europeans travel nine times as much by air: In 2019, rail travel accounted for about 72% as many passenger kilometers traveled in the EU as airplanes did. According to the Community of European Railway, trains — thanks to being mostly electrified — carry 13% of goods and 7% of passengers while accounting for just 2% of the EU’s energy consumption for transportation.
The three major air routes that will be banned are between Paris’s Orly airport and the French cities of Lyon, Nantes and Bordeaux. According to Euronews, a Lyon-based television network, more routes could be added to the ban, such as flights between Lyon and Marseille, if train service between those cities expands. (Train service has to meet requirements such as the ability to arrive in the early morning and late evening, in addition to the duration limit.)
In a decision late last week, the European Commission — the executive branch of the European Union — gave its approval to the law, which had been challenged by French airports and airline lobbyists.
When the law was passed last year, some members of the French Parliament opposed it, arguing that it would have a detrimental impact on the airline industry — which was still struggling because of COVID-19 — and by extension the national economy. One Socialist member of Parliament denounced the flight ban for having “disproportionate human cost” and predicted that it would contribute to higher unemployment. The airline pilots' union said it was “quite disappointed” by the government’s action, and it argued that such measures would harm French airlines’ competitiveness unless they were undertaken in conjunction with other countries placing the same restrictions on their domestic flights.
Leaders of France’s Green Party argued that the policy doesn’t go far enough. Karima Delli, a French Green member of the European Parliament, called the European Commission’s decision a “victory,” but added that “the threshold must be raised to four hours, and above all, include private jets in the ban.”
A spokesperson for the French government told Euronews that it does not plan to ban private jets under the climate law. But it does intend to produce a plan that would reduce private jet usage through a mixture of taxation and other regulations. France has the highest number of private jets of any country in Europe. A 2021 report from Transport and Environment, a European clean transportation advocacy group, found that private jets pollute up to 14 times as much as commercial flights, and 50 times more than trains, per passenger mile traveled.
Thomas Gelin, Greenpeace’s EU climate campaigner, said France’s short-haul commercial flight ban is “a baby step, but it’s one in the right direction.”
