So who gets to travel in the time of Climate Crisis?

To understand the deeper complexities of Climate Justice, this is a good question to ponder.

Jul 12, 2020

Welcome to the 4th issue of Climate Matters newsletter. If you like what you are seeing, subscribe, share and/or support my work on climate outreach.

The first time I flew in an airplane was about 13 years ago from today, when I was fresh out of college. My company put me on a flight months after I joined my first job, and I felt a strange excitement as if I had “arrived”, breaking the invisible barrier of a middle class person in a developing country. Flying, after all, is still a luxury afforded only to the privileged, whether in a developed or developing country.

But today we know both travel and flying contribute significantly to our overall emissions, catastrophically heating up our world in the process. According to study[1] published in 2018, tourism accounted for 8% of global greenhouse emissions. In comparison, the total emissions of India as a country in 2018 was 7%[2].

So the question beckons, should we stop flying and traveling?
And if we should stop others from flying and travelling too?

This isn’t a simple question with binary answers. There are many considerations.

But who exactly is traveling today?

The majority of tourism’s footprint is exerted by and in high-income countries, identifies the report[1]. Western folks have had the pleasure to travel for over a century. In 2018 alone, the USA, China, Japan, Germany and the UK were the top five markets collectively representing 47% of the global Travel & Tourism GDP[3]. (Side note: Historically, US and EU still have the highest overall emissions at 25% and 22% respectively measured[3] over the period of 1750 to 2017. See this cool visualisation too)

But Asians, Africans and other colonised country folks are just gaining the economic means to travel for pleasure. Asia remains the largest tourism growth market currently. Women also have also only recently gained financial independence and got the freedom from patriarchy to gallivant across the world as they please. And Africa is yet to make a visible dent on the travel emission scene.

The party has just started but the police is already here, so to speak.

Around the world, an individual’s economic and social status also plays a major part in deciding who gets to travel. So even though I’m from a developing country, an Asian and a woman (checking all historically disadvantaged categories when it comes to travel), comparatively I travel and fly much more than billions of people in both developed and developing nations who are not in an economically favourable situation.

This means a considerable section of people from high-income countries and another small section of high-income people from low-income countries/historically absent categories are overwhelmingly responsible for the tourism sector emissions.

So is it fair then, that few of us keep traveling while the majority can’t?

Here comes the tricky concept of climate justice or the moral framework to guide any action or regulation when it comes to emission reductions.

As people of colour, we deserve to fly and explore the world because we just got the opportunity after decades of colonialism, oppression and/or economic turmoil. As a woman, I deserve to have my adventures finally. And so do billions of people who aren’t travelling yet, but have a right to aspire to have all the good things in life. The most important thing to note here is that these people are in no way responsible for the mess we are in today. Then how can we possibly squash their dreams? All these wants are justified and we should create a world where people can still hope for a better life full of beauty, adventure, wonder and joy. Right?

But while it is true that there are several others above the chain (super rich, colonial regimes, western countries, governments, corporates) who have caused and continue to cause significantly more damage than us common folk, those of us who continue to indulge in a lifestyle of “excess”, are also partially responsible for this mess.

After all, flying is the most carbon intensive activity for an average person who is not directly involved in burning fossil fuels for money or disproportionately profiting off the carbon-intensive economy.

This is an independent publication funded by people like you. It takes me several days of obsessive reading, followed by research to write each newsletter issue. If you found this article useful, consider contributing any amount to my reporting fund or buy a print to support my work on climate outreach.

Listen to me talk about the importance of creative climate outreach here.

But can we honestly erase flying and travel from our world?

Firstly, tourism is extremely useful and a major contributor of GDP in many countries worldwide. According to the World Travel & Tourism Council report, 10% of global employment and 10.3% of global GDP is contributed by the travel and tourism industry. And as someone who has travelled for a decade now, I could honestly say ten thousand words more but no one here is unaware of the immense benefits that travel brings for both the travellers and the hosts.

Secondly, even if we engage in the thought experiment for a minute where we have ended all non-essential flying and travel for pleasure, individual emergencies as well as the way our economy and infrastructure is setup will require both flights and travel to continue on significantly. For instance, in Nepal there are several remote areas where reaching in person and dropping all supplies is possible only by a plane. And in case of emergencies anywhere in the world, time and comfort is of essence, not greenhouse gas emissions. We have built a world where travel and flying are an integral part of the way we run things. And this shows the fundamental flaw with disproportionately focusing on what a few people can or cannot do instead of universally making things better for the majority.

So what do we do?

This is a very tough spot to be. Many of us fully deserve to travel, and see and learn from the world. On the other hand, we are also taking away this opportunity from a vast majority and future generations because of this self-indulgence. Individualism has seen a new resurgence and fevered adoption over the last few decades. And this concept does well for advancing individual ambitions and personal liberties but when it comes to solving global societal problems, this ideology fails us massively. No person is truly an island and we cannot ignore the reality of our shared circumstances and threat to our society from climate change. Being selfish certainly serves some purpose in ensuring humans individually thrive. But societies always collapse when the collective needs and well-being is ignored in favour of short-term benefits and individual liberties.

I’d love to gallivant around the world without a worry because karma or personal liberty or self-interest or whatever justifies such selfish pursuits, but climate change pokes a massive hole in that bubble.

How do we approach this conundrum then?

Simply put, we cannot travel as we have been. And overtourism has clearly been a thorn in the side of global tourism industry for a while now. But that doesn’t mean no one else should travel anymore.

A joyless existence isn’t desirable or our end goal. Having seen what I’ve seen, I’d be lying if I say the adventure out there can be replaced with what’s in our immediate surroundings. So when the world restarts, if you’ve had the privilege to travel already, take a backseat now. Reduce your burden on the world. (P.S - I’m not foregoing air travel entirely, but will be reducing it significantly. Haven’t flown nearly in a year now.) It is time to allow others to have those incredible experiences. And use our privilege to make the world an equitable place meanwhile, by demanding for a system overhaul instead of burying our head in the sand.

But what does a system overhaul even look like?

This week, I have the pleasure of offering you an example of a promising solution - Bengaluru Moving. Bangalore’s traffic is so legendary that once a major terror attack was averted because the attacker was stuck in traffic and major traffic chokepoints have twitter handles! Thousands of crores in revenue and innumerable hours of productive time are lost while people are stuck in traffic. And this is a direct manifestation of the above mentioned short-sighted individualistic pursuits.

As income grew and cars became affordable, more people bought these status signalling, space eating, fuel guzzling, CO2 emitting death machines rather than invest in what’s good for the community overall - high standard and widespread public transportation. And today we’re seeing how we’ve reached an impasse already, because land, like the planet’s carbon budget, is a fixed resource. We cannot endlessly increase vehicle lanes and emissions. The amount of land we have will never be enough to match the number of vehicles we will put on the roads. So we need to optimise what we have instead of trying to stretch the capacity of cities and roads.

And that’s what Bengaluru Moving campaign intends to do - to demand accountability around public transport, to influence the Chief Minister, BBMP Chief Commissioner & BMTC Managing Director to expand bus priority lanes to 12 High Traffic Density Corridors in Bangalore in order to reduce vehicular emissions by 25% by 2024.

If you are from Bangalore, you can be a part of this social movement. This is a great opportunity for youth (22-30 year olds) to be a part of solution and learn the ropes of civic engagement & issue campaigning. This a paid fellowship and deadline to apply is 15th July 2020, act quick!

Apply to be a mobility champion here - Young Leaders for Active Citizenship

Other examples of promising systemic solutions worldwide are -

1. By 2040, Norway has promised all of its short-haul flights will be on electric aircraft. It could revolutionise the airline industry - Read more on BBC Future

Electric-powered aircraft are enjoying a boom at the moment; last year, the consulting firm Roland Berger found there were more than 100 electric-powered aircraft projects underway around the world.

2. Europe is ushering in a new golden era of train travel. Sweden is leading the way in revitalising rail – the rest of Europe must get on board with this green movement - Read more on Wired UK

Europe’s demand for rail travel will increase over the next decade, according to new analysis that cites the public’s new-found appreciation for cleaner air and climate issues as a result of the coronavirus outbreak. Airlines are predicted to be the main loser of the train resurgence.

What lessons do all of this bring for Climate Movement?

Two things -

1. Those who are consuming the most must give up the most. It is no secret that affluence is a major driver of environmental and social impacts. Luxury and excesses that continue exploit the environment and society cannot be a marker of success anymore. A good, sustainable standard of living should still be the goal for all, but the earth simply cannot support overconsumption and overexploitation anymore. I would say it is time for degrowth and wealth/resource redistribution (but I don’t know how many of you are ready for this yet?).

Can We Have Prosperity Without Growth? The critique of economic growth, once a fringe position, is gaining widespread attention in the face of the climate crisis - Read on New Yorker

2. If you are in any position of power or privilege, you have to wield it for the betterment of our shared circumstance, and not just your own individual ambition. That’s literally the solution to a global threat like climate change. As individuals, our only hope is that we join forces and change the way the world works so that the majority benefits, while not unfairly punishing those who are coming up the economic/privilege/societal ladder. Colonialism, racism and inequality is deeply enmeshed in who drives the crisis and who is impacted by the crisis.

And that’s exactly why solutions such as Flight Shaming that come with good intentions can still be very misguided and problematic. Tell a first generation graduate from Africa or Asia that their desire to travel the world is destroying the planet, and you will be summarily laughed at for a whole day, if the said person can control the indignation of being lectured after centuries of exploitation at the hand of the same system and group that also caused climate crisis.

Climate solutions must come with the understanding of privilege. Those who are more privileged, cause most damage. So it makes sense to start from the top instead of applying general solutions that will put a heterogenous, historically oppressed group at a disadvantage under the pretext of common good. Recognising this is the most important aspect of delivering climate justice and solving for climate change.

And that’s it for this week. Don’t forget to share this post with your traveller friends and start a discussion on what’s the responsible behaviour in these strange times.

This is the fourth of 52 newsletters planned for 2020 on Climate Crisis as part of my many initiatives to make climate crisis go mainstream this year. Now, comment and tell me if it worked, if it changed your perspective, if it lacked anything, if you’re happy to see this and/or any other thoughts and suggestions.

Climate Matters