Politics and Administration
Offsetting private flights
Researchers from the University of Bern have measured the actual willingness of air travellers to offset emissions from their own flights and have shown that only 4% of flights are offset.
International air travel accounts for 2.8 percent of annual global greenhouse gas emissions, making it one of the key industries in which rapid emission reductions would have to be achieved in order to advance climate change mitigation. In addition to state regulation, the industry relies on voluntary climate change mitigation. Many airlines allow their customers to voluntarily offset emissions resulting from their flights with a higher price in favor of a climate change mitigation project. A research team from the University of Bern has now for the first time measured the actual willingness to pay for this type of investment in climate change mitigation. The results were published in the internationally renowned journal “Global Environmental Change”.