There is an extremely interesting new poll by the “EUPinions” Institute (which seems rather neo-liberal, certainly no eco-leftist propaganda…) on the ideas of Europeans on climate protection. Some of the data is really interesting for trains:
Almost two thirds (!) support a ban (not just higher taxes!) of short haul flights – with an far reaching definitition of “short”: We would not have dared to set a 12 hour train trip as the limit here…
It seems that we have a majority of people in Europe behind us if we demand a ban on short-haul flights – which we would not have expected. Let’s go for it!
The questions in the survey were designed by the research team of Europe’s Stories, a research project of the Dahrendorf Programme for the Study of Freedom at the European Studies Centre, St Antony’s College, University of Oxford, in consultation with the experts of the Bertelsmann Stiftung’s eupinions survey. The poll was conducted between September 7th and September 28th 2020 as part of the quarterly eupinions wave, using their usual methodology. In all 27 EU member states and the United Kingdom, over 13,000 respondents between the ages of 16 and 69 were surveyed.
Broadly, I would agree with Joachim; there has to be rational thinking employed here. In many European countries the energy for rail transport comes from fossil fuels almost exclusively, so what is being done to reduce these? Sure air travel can be more wasteful in per person terms, but is it really that much more than a lightly loaded train journey from Berlin to, say, Barcelona or Bordeaux? Even the extensive nuclear power stations within France seem cheap and largely non-polluting, but de-commissioning increasingly beckons for most of them. Very expensive and vastly more so to replace them.
So many questions arise on the topic of transport. All too often tricky to answer!
I would not support a ban in this way, in particular not on air travel fueled by renewable energy. Kerosene-based flights over a similar distance, e.g. to beaches near Barcelone or Palma de Mallorca, have a similar environmental impact, and it would make no sence to provide incentives to fly to Palma by outlawing flights to Barcelone.
I rather believe legislation should lead to a drastic reduction of flights over such distances, with the additional benefit that also flights to places like Palma would be reduced for cost considerations of travelers. In such a system, there would be incentives to travel to destinations that can be reached by train rather easily (e.g. Barcelone) once better train connections are established, but for peoples that want to fly in any case, there would be a level playing field between destinations. Ban of short distance flights also would not prevent people from taking connecting planes to reach destinations at smaller distances.
Currently, connections from Barcelone out of Spain seem to be limited to one train daily to Lyon, one more to Paris (6:40 travel time); this also indicates that there is a lot of potential without resorting to bans of other modes of trafic.