The world is facing severe climate change for a decade which is costing several lives and resources. Many countries are becoming aware of this fact and have started preparing for it, and the whole revolution is headed by France itself because it has a strong reach in the European Union.
French lawmakers have approved a bill that will ban domestic flights for shorter distances to lower the country's carbon emission. Under the proposal, air routes will vanish if the same journey can be made by train in under two and a half hours.
The bill is aimed to remove domestic flights between the capital Paris and other cities like Nantes, Lyon, or Bordeaux. The law does provide an exception for connecting flights. France's new law was watched closely by other countries and Last year similar step was taken by Austria to make its capital, Vienna, carbon neutral. The Netherlands is also trying, since 2013, to ban short-distance domestic flights.
Reasons behind Proposing This Bill
France is the leading party in showing soft power by reducing its greenhouse gas emission and setting an example for the world to work in making the earth a more beautiful and better place to live. This new rule is just a small part of the French climate bill that proposes a vision of bringing carbon emission down from 1990 levels by 40% till 2030.
It is working extensively in reducing carbon emission since the start of this decade and in the year 2016, they hosted a convention in collaboration with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) where they signed an agreement called the Paris Agreement with 197 countries who all are the members of UNFCCC.
In this agreement, they stated the provision that the global temperature should not increase more than two degrees Celsius by the end of this century. This was one of the reasons for this flight ban act of the French government.
The climate commission set up by the French president Macron has originally recommended the scraping of all flights between French destinations where an alternative direct train journey of fewer than four hours existed. This step will also help in isolating areas that are highly impacted by this Covid19 pandemic.
This was reduced to two and a half-hour after a strong objection from certain regions and Air France speakers which like other airline is badly hit by the devastation of the Covid19 pandemic.
This bill, will present a strong hurdle for travel and tourism sectors but when considered for the long run it is strongly going to be a remarkable step for all countries who are trying to reduce carbon emission and have a goal of becoming carbon neutral.
A year ago, the French government agreed to make a provision of $8.4 billion for Air France on the condition that certain internal flights will be dropped, but the decree will also stop low-cost airlines from operating the banned domestic routes.
The CEO of Air France said the airline is committed to reducing the numbers of its French domestic routes by 40% by the end of this year.
Impacts of This Bill
It will certainly impact the French economy, but the impact of this step will be balanced by future sustainable growth which will increase French people's healthy lifestyle and life expectancy, which help them to contribute to the economy even more than today.
This will be a big boost for French soft power and a perfect example of a development with environmental protection. The aviation industry is responsible for 2.5% of global carbon emission and while that may seem like a small figure but remember it is coming from a very small population.
In 2018, it was estimated that only 18% of the French people took a flight and only 4% of the global population traveled internationally. So, it is comparatively easy to reduce carbon emission in the avaition inudstry than in any other industry.
Air travel for 1 hour emits around half a kilogram of carbon. So, by this law, France can reduce 1.25 kilogram of carbon on evry single flight.
Environmental activist, Greta Thunberg, is supporting a movement called flight shame under which many people are boycotting flights because of their high carbon emission and she supports the gesture of the French government on discussing that topic in the mainstream.
Conclusion
Global climate change is one of the most serious issues, and, if neglected, it will cost you everything you own. According to a French environmental group, the change in law will only impact 5 of the 108, pre–coronavirus, domestic routes in France or 4.6% of the trips.
These steps are not very much common in developing countries because developing countries demands extensive infrastructure and developments which can cost huge carbon emission but with finding the alternative of the product used in construction in the eco-friendly market, the country can achieve sustainable growth with environmental development.
The collaborative actions of developed countries like France with developing countries like India in finding ecological alternatives of development products can attain sustainable growth with balanced returns.
Written by - Aditya Pandey
Edited by - Piyush Pandey
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