Tax the rich who most use the plane to defray the cost of the energy transition in the aeronautical sector. This is the proposal that has been found on the table by the main political leaders of the sector who meet at the 41st Assembly of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO, in its acronym in English) of the UN, which is being held in Montreal (Canada). ) between this Wednesday and next October 7.
The study, carried out by the NGO International Council on Clean Transportation, has been based on the estimates of the ICAO, which calculates that technological investments worth 4 billion (Spanish) dollars are needed for the sector to achieve the objective of reaching the complete decarbonization in 2050. That supposes the complicated number of investing about 121,000 million dollars annually.
To get that income, it proposes two scenarios. The first would be a general fee for all plane users of 25 dollars per flight. A rate that the world's leading airlines have already strongly opposed.
The second would apply to frequent passengers, understanding as such those who make more than eight annual flights. In this case, an increasing rate would be applied depending on the number of flights that would go from 9 dollars to 177 dollars.
81% of the income from that rate would be paid by just 2% of the world's population, who are the only ones who make more than six flights a year, and 90% of the income would come from the richest 10% in the world.
"Frequent air travelers should cover the cost associated with clean technologies because otherwise those who contribute least to pollution could be expelled from access to flights," said Sola Zheng, author of the study.
The measure would also shift the cost to the most developed countries, which is where the greatest use of the plane is made, so the distribution would be more equitable also in political terms. Specifically, with the rate for frequent travelers, 67% of revenue would be collected in developed countries, while if a similar rate were applied to all users without exception, only 51% of the total would be collected in developed countries. of estimated income.
In conclusion, the developed countries with the highest income would contribute 67% of total world income. Given that high-income countries have emitted around 70% of aviation CO2 over the last four decades, the analysis suggests that cost burden under a frequent flyer levy would closely track historical aviation emissions.
Faced with the usual alarm of the impact airlines that any type of tax can damage the demand. The study minimizes these consequences. Specifically, it estimates a "modest" drop of around 7% in total demand. The richest 5% of the population could be forced to reduce their flights by 10%, but the impact on the rest of the population would be “barely negligible”.
Future travel demand could fall modestly (~7%) in response to environmental taxation. With an FFL, the population with the highest income 5% would reduce flights by 12%, while the impact on the bottom 80% would be negligible.
