France bans short haul flights - Agenda 2030 in full flow

Flying for Me not for Thee

As I have previously reported, Goal 13 of Agenda 2030 is Climate Action.

Now where have I seen the number 13 with an all seeing eye before? Oh yes, on the dollar bill - an all seeing eye over a 13 stepped pyramid.

Also as I have previously reported, a report produced by leading universities and sponsored by the UK Government shows us what they want climate action to look like.

In the UK, by 2030, they want all airports closed except for Heathrow (England), Glasgow (Scotland) and Belfast (Northern Ireland). By 2050 they want them all closed.

Within eight years they want shipping to contract with only freight ships operating without emissions. By 2050 they want all shipping to decline to zero.

Sound unrealistic? How would they manage that? Well firstly by just closing the airports. Last month, Doncaster Sheffield Airport (Which was named Britain’s best airport for the third time running in 2019) closed for good.

A newspaper report thought it unusual that the airport was closing.

Despite Doncaster Sheffield topping the Which? survey of best airports four years running and the offer of public cash to keep it open, the airport’s owners the Peel Group appear determined to close the transport hub.

Now France have found another way to achieve their Agenda 2030 goals. This time by banning short haul flights. France’s Climate Laws want to stop flights between cities where there are train journeys that take less than two and a half hours.

The European Commission allowed this ban to go ahead in a decision implemented on Friday 1 December 2022. The law was initially proposed in 2021 but a number of French airports challenged the decision with the European Commission. However, unsurprisingly, the Commission have now approved France’s Agenda 30 laws.

Initially, France wanted a complete ban on all short haul flights, so this law is a step back from that. Moreover, this will initially only affect eight routes. But, if after three years, the scheme is successful, more flights will be banned.

When making their decision, the European Commission made the following statements:

• One of the objectives of the Commission’s Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy (the ‘Mobility Strategy’) is to create the conditions for transport operators to offer carbon neutral options by 2030 to their customers on scheduled collective journeys of less than 500 km in the EU.

• The European Green Deal calls for a 90 % reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from transport by 2050 and making the transport system as a whole sustainable. As stressed in the Mobility Strategy, ‘to achieve this systemic change, we need to (1) make all transport modes more sustainable, (2) make sustainable alternatives widely available in a multimodal transport system, and (3) put into place the right incentives to drive the transition. (…) This implies that all policy levers must be pulled’.

• As a preliminary remark, the Commission notes that a variety of legislative and non-legislative tools are being developed to help and further encourage the air transport sector to significantly reduce its CO2 emissions and become more sustainable. As part of its ‘Fit for 55 package’, the Commission presented a proposal to revise the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) ( 14) to strengthen the carbon price signal, a proposal to revise the Energy Taxation Directive ( 15) that removes the mandatory exemption on jet fuels, as well as a new legislative proposal, the ‘ReFuelEU Aviation’ ( 16). That initiative aims to decarbonise the aviation sector by mandating the uptake of sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) while ensuring a well-functioning aviation market.

The report continues by saying that once all the Commission’s ‘Fit for 55’ measures are in place the air transport sector will effectively be decarbonised and so banning flights will no longer be needed. What this means is that their measures will make flying so expensive that most companies will go bust and the remaining flights will be unaffordable to the plebs.

This three year ban is estimated to reduced CO2 emissions from air transport by 55,000 tonnes. Or to put it another way, it’s like stopping 36 King Charles’ flying (approx. 500 tonnes/year) or 11 lots of Bill Gates (1,600 tonnes/year).

And of course, this ban is for PUBLIC passenger air transport services only, so if you are rich and have a private jet, carry on.

Don’t worry though, even if jet fuel is banned or priced too high, electric planes are on the way. The only problem is that they are so small, once again, only the elites will be able to afford a ticket.

Flying for Me, not for Thee. You reduce your carbon footprint so I can increase mine. But you will be happy. YOU WILL BE HAPPY OR WE WILL TURN YOUR SOCIAL CREDIT SCORE NEGATIVE AND YOU WON’T BE ABLE TO BUY FOOD. Good! You’re happy again. I don’t like seeing sad faces when I fly over you all in my private jet.