{"id":35530,"date":"2023-05-31T10:34:59","date_gmt":"2023-05-31T05:04:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=35530"},"modified":"2025-04-21T08:33:49","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T03:03:49","slug":"france-bans-short-haul-domestic-flights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/france-bans-short-haul-domestic-flights\/","title":{"rendered":"France Bans Short-Haul Domestic Flights"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><strong>What\u2019s in today\u2019s article?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Why in News?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Context (Aviation Ban in France)<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>CO2 Emissions from Aviation Industry<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Contribution of Private Jets in CO2 Emissions<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Impact of Emissions from Airplanes<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>What is the Solution to Reduce CO2 Emissions from Aviation Industry?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Challenges Associated with SAF (Sustainable Aviation Fuels)<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Offset Mechanism for Reducing Emissions from Aviation Industry<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Conclusion<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Why in News?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Last week, France announced a ban on all short-haul domestic flights.<\/li>\n<li>A month earlier, the Schiphol airport in Amsterdam, one of the busiest in Europe, banned private jets and small business planes.<\/li>\n<li>There is a growing clamour in Europe for a bigger crackdown on private aviation sector.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Context (Aviation Ban in France)<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>France, last week, became the first country in the world to impose a ban on short-haul domestic flights.<\/li>\n<li>The country brought in a new law, effective from May 23, that <strong><u>bars air travel to destinations that can be covered by up to two-and-a-half hour journey by train<\/u><\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>There is growing demand for a wider crackdown on private aviation.<\/li>\n<li>Apart from France, the Netherlands, Austria and Ireland urged the European Union to strengthen regulations to discourage travel by private jets in order to reduce CO2 emissions from aviation industry.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>CO2 Emissions from Aviation Industry<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>In 1960, 100 million passengers travelled by air, at the time a relatively expensive mode of transportation available only to a small fraction of the public.<\/li>\n<li><strong>By 2019, the total annual world-wide passenger count was 4.56 billion<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>In 2021 aviation accounted for over <strong>2% of global energy-related CO2 emissions<\/strong>, having grown faster in recent decades than road, rail or shipping.<\/li>\n<li>As it stands, the <strong>aviation sector produces 900 million CO2 per year<\/strong>, according to International Air Transport Association (IATA).<\/li>\n<li>By 2050, if nothing is done to reduce the industry\u2019s carbon footprint, that will rise to 1.8 billion tons.<\/li>\n<li>Reducing this level to gradually achieve net zero emissions in 2050 poses an enormous technological challenge that the IATA estimates will cost companies around <strong>USD 1.55 trillion between 2020 and 2050<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Contribution of Private Jets in CO2 Emissions<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Private jets, usually far more inefficient than large commercial airliners, have always been a big eyesore from the climate perspective.<\/li>\n<li>In a recent report, it was found that <strong>private jets were 5 to 14 times more polluting, per passenger, than commercial planes, and 50 times more polluting than trains<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>It said private planes could emitting about 2 tonnes of carbon dioxide every hour, while an average person in Europe emits about 8.2 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in an entire year.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Impact of Emissions from Airplanes<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi-test.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com\/media\/content\/ckeditor\/2023\/06\/02\/image-20230602020656-1.png\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Image Caption: Impact of Emissions from Airplanes<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>CO2<\/strong> is the largest component of aircraft emissions, accounting for approximately 70 percent of the exhaust.<\/li>\n<li>After being emitted, 30 percent of a given quantity of the gas is removed from the atmosphere naturally over 30 years, an additional 50 percent disappears within a few hundred years, and the remaining <strong>20 percent stays in the atmosphere for thousands of years<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Water vapor<\/strong> is also a product of jet fuel consumption, <strong>making up about 30 percent of the exhaust<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>With its short lifespan in the atmosphere as part of the water cycle, water vapor from aircraft has a minimal direct warming impact.\n<ul>\n<li>However, its presence in the exhaust plume has an indirect impact by contributing to the formation of contrails.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>All the remaining emissions in the graphic make up less than one percent of the exhaust plume.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What is the Solution to Reduce CO2 Emissions from Aviation Industry?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>IATA says that the main solution lies in the use of <strong>sustainable aviation fuels (SAF)<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>These fuels \u2013 <strong>made from biomass, waste oils and could even be made from carbon capture in future<\/strong> \u2013 have the advantage that they can be used directly in existing aircraft.<\/li>\n<li>Such fuel sources can <strong>reduce CO2 emissions by 80 percent compared to kerosene over their entire life cycle<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Two leading plane manufacturing corporations, <strong>Airbus<\/strong> and <strong>Boeing<\/strong>, have pledged that their fleets will be able to fly 100 percent on SAF by 2030.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Challenges Associated with SAF (Sustainable Aviation Fuels)<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Currently, SAF accounts for <strong>only 0.1 percent of aviation fuel<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Encouraged by governments, the infrastructure to produce SAF is being set up in the US and Europe, but is still embryonic \u2013 and the cheapest fuel that comes out <strong>costs four time more than kerosene<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Offset Mechanism for Reducing Emissions from Aviation Industry<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>In 2016, the <strong>International Civil Aviation Organisation<\/strong> (ICAO) put in place an offset mechanism to ensure that <strong>any increase in emissions over 2020 levels is compensated for by the airline industry through investment in carbon saving projects elsewhere<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Called Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation, or <strong>CORSIA<\/strong>, the <strong>offset plan is supposed to run from 2021 to 2035<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>CORSIA is considered a breakthrough, but it is not very ambitious. It only seeks to offset emissions that are over and above 2020 levels. It does not deal with total emissions.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Conclusion<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Reducing aviation emissions through other means has not proved to be easy.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Unlike road or rail travel, aviation does not have viable technology alternatives for shifting to cleaner fuels<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Biofuels have been tried and so have hydrogen fuel cells.<\/li>\n<li>Solar powered planes have also made trips.<\/li>\n<li>But use of these alternative fuels for flying large commercial airliners is still some distance away.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3><strong>Q1) In which two layers of the atmosphere do airplanes fly?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Passengers planes mostly fly in the lower stratosphere layer and also in the top level of tropopause because these are less turbulent layers and provide a smoother ride. The layer that exists between the troposphere and the stratosphere is termed as the tropopause.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Q2) What is UDAN Scheme of government?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>UDAN Scheme is basically a regional airport development program which is launched by the government of India. It is basically a part of a regional connectivity scheme for upgrading the under-serviced air routes. Through this scheme, air travel will be made affordable and widespread.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Source:\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/explained\/explained-climate\/france-bans-short-haul-domestic-flights-curbs-on-airplane-emissions-8636499\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>France bans short-haul domestic flights: Can curbs on airplane emissions help fight climate change<\/u><\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/economictimes.indiatimes.com\/news\/international\/business\/zero-net-emissions-by-2050-a-huge-challenge-for-airline-industry\/articleshow\/86774736.cms?from=mdr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>ET<\/u><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>France became the first country in the world to impose a ban on short-haul domestic flights.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":35531,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-35530","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35530\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}