Why Flying Carbon Class to COP26 is Cheaper Than Taking the Train

BY ARYN BAKER

Senior Correspondent

In less than two weeks, leaders from 196 countries and around 25,000 delegates, activists and protestors will descend on the Scottish city of Glasgow for the United Nation’s 26th global climate summit, or COP 26. It is no small irony that most of them will travel by air, the most carbon-intensive form of travel, emitting six times more CO2 per passenger mile than taking the train. The U.K., of course, is an island, so alternatives are limited. But even for those traveling from elsewhere in Great Britain, where trains are ubiquitous, it’s not an easy choice. A round-trip train ride from London to Glasgow costs nearly three times the price of an EasyJet flight, according to a quick search on the travel cost comparison website Omio.com. I would be thrilled to take the 25-hour train route from Rome, where I live, to Glasgow, but at a cost of more than $1,300 for a one-way trip, compared to a $500 round trip flight, TIME’s travel budget office may be less enthusiastic.

Within the E.U., where low-cost airlines dominate the market, the price difference can be even more stark. Aviation is responsible for 2.5% of global CO2 emissions, and even more global warming when other greenhouse gas emissions such as nitrogen oxide are taken into account. Both the E.U. and the U.K. have committed to some of the strongest greenhouse gas emission reduction targets in the world, and trains are far better for the climate than flying. So why is it still so much cheaper to take a plane?

There are a couple of reasons, says Andrew Murphy, aviation director at the European Federation for Transport and Environment, a sustainable transport organization. First and foremost, he says, the cost of a flight ticket doesn’t reflect the broader climate and environmental impacts, because it is undertaxed. It also doesn’t include the full cost of operating a flight because of numerous subsidies built into the aviation sector. “There is a reason why Ryanair can sell tickets for 19 Euros. On every step of the way, from designing the plane to running the airport to paying for the fuel there are subsidies involved.”

Policy makers could do a lot to help close the price gap: charging a tax on jet fuel, for example, something the E.U. doesn’t currently do. There is a proposal on the books to phase in jet fuel taxes over the next decade for flights within Europe, but it could be a hard sell politically. CO2 emissions from aviation are included in the E.U. emissions-trading system, in which emissions from businesses are capped and surplus allowances can be bought and sold. The current market price to pollute is around $50 per ton of CO2 , which isn’t enough to impact consumer choice, says Sola Zheng, an aviation expert at the U.S.-based environmental research organization International Council on Clean Transportation. She estimates that a $300 per ton price would lead to a 10% increase in ticket prices, which could reduce demand.

Some climate organizations are proposing that short-haul flights be done away with entirely. The U.K.-based Campaign for Better Transport is calling for a halt to all domestic plane journeys in Britain. In April, the French parliament voted to ban short-haul internal flights when rail alternatives could cover the journey in two-and-a-half hours or less. Germany’s Green Party is seeking a similar ban.

An all-stick approach to reducing carbon emissions isn’t going to work long term, however, and there could be a backlash if rail options don’t step up with viable alternatives. Railways are also subsidized, but in most countries there is very little competition among carriers, which keeps prices high. Nor is there a rail equivalent to Skyscanner or Expedia that allows for easy route and fare comparisons. “The rail market needs to become a bit more 21st century,” says Murphy. That means more flexible routes and competitive options. Austrian railway company ÖBB is expanding its overnight passenger train service throughout Europe and is positioning itself as a hipper, more climate-conscious alternative to budget flights. It’s a start, says Murphy, but there needs to be more if rail is to truly compete with air transport. “If you’re very concerned with your climate impact, you will go for the more expensive train option, but a lot of people don't have the means to do this. It should not have to be more expensive to make the more sustainable choice, and right now it is.”

Tuesday, October 19, 2021

BY JEFFREY KLUGER

Searching for the Source of This Pandemic—and the Next One

Science has learned a lot about SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, over the course of the pandemic—including how to vaccinate people against it. But as we approach the second anniversary of the virus' emergence, one big mystery still lingers: where it came from. The two leading theories—that it either leapt from a bat or other animal to humans, or it escaped from a lab—remain just that: theories. And as my colleague Jamie Ducharme reports, as time goes by, the odds of finding a concrete answer grow slimmer. Trying to reverse engineer the virus' origins at this point, Lawrence Gostin, a professor of global health law at Georgetown University, told Jamie, is like "going back to the scene of a crime two years later and the crime scene has been scrubbed."

All the same, the World Health Organization (WHO) has not given up. On Oct. 13, the WHO announced the formation of the Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens (SAGO), a team of international experts that will continue searching for the origins of the current pandemic and put in place protocols to come up with better, faster answers next time.

The new panel is made up of 26 proposed experts in fields including epidemiology, animal health, virology, genomics, public health and tropical medicine, selected from over 700 applicants. Unlike a WHO team that went to China in January 2021 to investigate the SARS-CoV-2 mystery—and came up with inconclusive findings—the SAGO researchers will not conduct fresh field research. Rather, they will review the existing studies and data to see if there are new clues to be found.

While there is no telling what leads may lie in the wealth of epidemiological findings accumulated over the past two years, Maria Van Kerkhove, who leads the Emerging Diseases and Zoonoses unit in the WHO's Health Emergencies Program, told Jamie that the purpose of SAGO is less to crack the SARS-CoV-2 mystery—which may well never happen—than to "do better next time," establishing best-practice models for how to strike quickly and thoroughly in looking for the source of the next emerging pathogen.

​​"Let's say another disease emerges tomorrow in country X," says Van Kerkhove. "This group can come together and take whatever information we have, whatever we know about the cluster or the case, and say, 'These things need to happen right now.'"

Un poème 

20 octobre 1859 : naissance d'Arthur Rimbaud à Charleville. En 1873, il écrit Une saison en enfer comme le testament d'une période de chaos et de douleur, après le «drame de Bruxelles» entre le jeune poète et Verlaine.

Arthur Rimbaud (1859-1891). Bianchetti / Leemage

Matin

N'eus-je pas une fois une jeunesse aimable, héroïque, fabuleuse, à écrire sur des feuilles d'or, – trop de chance ! Par quel crime, par quelle erreur, ai-je mérité ma faiblesse actuelle ? Vous qui prétendez que des bêtes poussent des sanglots de chagrin, que des malades désespèrent, que des morts rêvent mal, tâchez de raconter ma chute et mon sommeil. Moi, je ne puis pas plus m'expliquer que le mendiant avec ses continuels Pater et Ave Maria. Je ne sais plus parler !

Pourtant, aujourd'hui, je crois avoir fini la relation de mon enfer. C'était bien l'enfer ; l'ancien, celui dont le fils de l'homme ouvrit les portes.

Du même désert, à la même nuit, toujours mes yeux las se réveillent à l'étoile d'argent, toujours, sans que s'émeuvent les Rois de la vie, les trois mages, le cœur l'âme, l'esprit. Quand irons-nous, par-delà les grèves et les monts, saluer la naissance du travail nouveau, la sagesse nouvelle, la fuite des tyrans et des démons, la fin de la superstition, adorer – les premiers ! – Noël sur la terre !

Le chant des cieux, la marche des peuples ! Esclaves, ne maudissons pas la vie.

Par Arthur Rimbaud

Guerre d'Algérie : Macron face au piège de la mémoire

Emmanuel Macron au garde à vous, samedi 16 octobre, lors de la commémoration des événements du 17 octobre 1961, près du pont de Bezons, en région parisienne. POOL / REUTERS

Samedi, Emmanuel Macron commémorait avec un jour d'avance les événements du 17 octobre 1961 et la mémoire de ces Algériens morts lors de la répression d'une manifestation sur les ponts de Paris, dans un contexte de crise diplomatique entre la France et l'Algérie. Le président de la République a reconnu des «crimes inexcusables». Des mots qui s'inscrivent dans la stratégie du chef de l'État depuis presque cinq ans d'apaiser les relations entre les deux pays. Toutes ces tentatives ne sont néanmoins pas reçues comme on le voudrait, Alger n'ayant pas fait montre d'une quelconque volonté de coopérer. Le pays n'a d'ailleurs pas franchement apprécié certaines des petites phrases récentes du président français, qui a notamment remis en question l'existence d'une «nation algérienne avant la colonisation». Et pour bien marquer son mécontentement, l'Algérie a fermé son espace aérien à l'armée française. L'affaire n'est pas mince à gérer pour la France qui doit composer avec une défiance du côté algérien mais aussi du côté de ces Français d'origine algérienne, dont la rancune est tenace – même trois générations après.

Et si le président a pu viser juste en appliquant son «totem mémoriel: “ni déni, ni repentance”», la réconciliation mémorielle voulue par la France n'aboutira jamais tant que l'Algérie ne fera pas un pas vers nous aussi, estime Guillaume Tabard. Si ce n'est certes pas la première fois que la relation bilatérale connaît des remous, il est probable que les choses finissent par s'apaiser. Sans pour autant que l'on aboutisse à une «réconciliation», toutes les tentatives précédentes ayant échoué. En beaucoup de points, la relation diplomatique entre la France et l'Algérie rappelle des difficultés conjugales, faites de problèmes de communication et de non-dits qu'Emmanuel Macron va bien être forcé de constater.

Le sujet est sensible et, comme tout sujet sensible qui se respecte, il a fait réagir au quart de tour la classe politique. Pour la gauche, le président n'est pas allé assez loin, il aurait mieux valu parler de «crime d'État». À droite, c'est un concert de critiques: «repentance», «criminalisation de l'histoire», «propagande victimaire»... Chacun y est allé de son mot pour fustiger l'hommage présidentiel.

Au milieu de toutes ces polémiques, pour se remettre un peu les idées en place, Jean-Paul Brunet en revient aux faits. Celui qui fut le premier historien à avoir accès aux archives concernant ce drame remet les pendules à l'heure, notamment concernant le nombre de morts estimés lors de la répression de la manifestation.