Adding a levy to airline tickets could raise more than €100bn a year to pay for the damage done by climate breakdown, research has found.
Flying is the most carbon-intensive means of travel, but is artificially cheap as airline fuel is often not taxed, and the environmental impacts are not paid for.
Aviation makes up more than 2% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Even in developed countries, only about half of people fly each year and about 1% of the world’s population is responsible for more than half of the aviation emissions.
Several countries are considering putting a charge on tickets that would raise money to help tackle the climate crisis, particularly for poor countries.
Analysis by the Dutch environmental consultancy CE Delft, commissioned by the Global Solidarity Levies Task Force, has shown that a levy on tickets that began at €10 on short-haul flights in economy, including domestic flights, rising to €30 on long-haul flights, and €20 for short-haul business-class tickets, rising to €120 for long-haul, would produce revenues of about €106bn a year.
If the levy was based on fuel consumption instead of ticket sales, it could raise about €84bn a year, but could be subject to airlines trying to circumvent the system by changing their routes.
A levy would have broad public support in many regions, as polling by Oxfam and Greenpeace has found about three-quarters of people in 13 countries thought wealthy air passengers should pay more tax.
Countries could also adjust the levy to fall more heavily on the rich and frequent flyers. Private jets could be subject to a separate scheme.
France, Kenya and Barbados are leading calls for a flight levy, and for other potential means of raising the funds needed to tackle the climate crisis in developing countries, such as taxes on shipping and fossil fuels. These are known collectively as global solidarity levies, and the charge on aviation is seen as one of the easiest to implement.
Laurence Tubiana, the co-chair of the Global Solidarity Levies Task Force secretariat, set up by the three countries, said: “New levies on first- and business-class tickets or private jets can raise vital funds for everything from health to trains, and climate to development. People around the world pay a lot of tax on petrol for their car, while commercial airlines and private jets often pay no or low tax on their fuel.
“We can redress the balance with a modest extra contribution from those with the greatest means, without raising prices for the vast majority who work hard all year to enjoy an occasional holiday.”
Governments are meeting in Bonn this week and next to discuss the Cop30 climate summit, which will take place in Brazil this November. Campaigners are concerned that too little attention is being given to climate finance, by which rich countries are supposed to help their poorer counterparts to cope with the impacts of extreme weather.
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At last year’s Cop29, in Azerbaijan, countries agreed that $1.3tn should be made available each year by 2035 to help poor countries. Of this, at least $300bn is supposed to come directly from rich countries, with the rest from a variety of sources, including global solidarity levies, the private sector and carbon trading.
Many civil society groups are calling for fossil fuel companies to pay for the damage they have caused. The Oxfam and Greenpeace survey found about eight in 10 people would support such a move, in a poll carried out in Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, India, Kenya, Mexico, the Philippines, South Africa, Spain, the UK and the US.
Chiara Liguori, a senior policy adviser at Oxfam, said: “Rich polluters are continuing to cash in on climate devastation, and their profiteering is destroying the lives of millions of people who have done the least to cause the escalating climate crisis.
“Fairer taxes on polluting industries around the world could help avoid more deaths, providing immediate and significant support to climate-vulnerable countries, and finally incentivise investment in a fast, fair transition to renewables.”
