Exberliner Issue 167, January 2018

TRAINS
GREEN TRAVEL
You eat only vegan food, bike everywhere and refuse to buy plastic bottles – so
why are you still flying low-cost airlines all around Europe? Sandra Sarala tells us
why the EasyJetset should choo-choo-choose more sustainable transportation.
everal mornings per week, my
travel-lust gets multiple teases
from airlines in email form: a
“Last chance to earn miles easily”,
another invitation to “Book a flight now for
autumn 2018”. I sip my organic fair trade
coffee and glower back at the computer
screen glowing with renewables-powered
electricity, reflecting on glyphosate’s license
renewal, Dieselgate, Anthropocene extinction,
and the starving polar bears who prove
that allowing a two-degree temperature rise
is already 1.5 degrees too many.
The 21st century is stressful, dammit! I
practice permaculture, 95 percent of the
food in my cupboards is vegan and winter is
long and hard. Surely I deserve a trip in the
sun... but not like this. Deleting the shameful
evidence of frequent flyer history from my
inbox, I resolve to take the train instead.
UNFAIR COMPETITION
It’s never been easier or cheaper to take
to the skies than it is right now. Discount
giants like Ryanair and EasyJet keep on
opening new hubs across Europe; the latter
just took over AirBerlin’s routes between
Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich and Stuttgart. New
players like Air France subsidiary Joon and
Iceland’s Wow Air keep sprouting up. It’s no
wonder the number of passengers flying out
of Berlin has nearly doubled in the past 10
years, from 16,846,469 January-October 2007
to 28,902,991 for the same period in 2017.
All those discounters are buoyed by the
1992 liberalisation of the airline system.
This allowed airlines to drop prices via
complex pricing structures which fluctuate
with demand; use small airports with lower
landing fees; and offer lower levels of service
and worse employee conditions. What’s
more: until very recently, planes weren’t
paying enough fuel tax. With lofty WWII
end-game ideals of creating world peace and
friendship, 1944’s “Chicago” Convention on
TAKE EASYJET’S NEW FLIGHT
TO MUNICH AND YOU,
PASSENGER, ARE RESPONSI-
BLE FOR EMITTING 39.7 KILOS
OF CARBON DIOXIDE.
International Civil Aviation gave massive tax
breaks to airlines. It was only in 2012 that
the European Union’s ‘cap and trade’ carbon
emissions trading system (ETS) enabled fuel
taxation, and then only for airlines within
the European Economic Area (the EU plus
Norway, Iceland, and Liechtenstein).
But cheap flights come at a high cost to the
environment. According to the International
Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), aviation
is currently responsible for 2.1 percent
of global CO2 emissions. Take EasyJet’s new
flight to Munich at 78.62g/km and you, passenger,
are responsible for emitting 39.7 kilos
of carbon dioxide (see chart). On Deutsche
Bahn’s speedy new ICE route to the same
city, your figure would be around 4.6 kilos.
And the good news is that according to
Christoph Lerche, Deutsche Bahn’s European
Head of Transport Policy, “All long-distance
journeys on ICE, IC and EC trains will operate
100 percent with renewable energy as of the
beginning of 2018.” DB’s renewable sources
are mainly hydro and wind energy, mostly
from external suppliers, often in long-term
contracts. The company’s total renewable energy
proportion for long-, middle- and shortdistance
trains stood at 42 percent in 2016,
targeting 70 percent by 2030 and aiming for
CO2-free by 2050 at the latest. Already ahead
of earlier-set targets, they claim to be “leading
the energy transition in the transport sector”.
“Rail doesn’t emit that much, especially with
electric, which has no emissions except from
where they buy the power from,” confirms
economist Gian Carlo Scarsi, a former Head
of Regulatory Economics who ran comparative
efficiency benchmark analyses for the
UK’s Network Rail. “But airlines have a huge
advantage as opposed to rail. The sky is
‘free’, they’re not paying enough for the pollution
generated, they have no infrastructure
charges such as for rail and other vehicles.
Lerche can only agree. “It’s more challenging
for rail to offer better fares than other
modes of transport. And those inequal conditions
also include ‘regular’ taxes. Whereas
international flights are exempted from
value-added tax, the full tax applies to longdistance
rail journeys.” The surcharges paid
by Deutsche Bahn according to Germany’s
Renewable Energy Sources Act were over
€150 million in 2017, four times more than
2012. “Rail is burdened by energy taxes and
the emission trading scheme.”
THE DIRTY TRUTH
Of course, it’s not just planes that railroads
have to compete with these days – it’s cars
and buses, as well. Flixbus might take twice
as long to get you to Munich as Deutsche
Bahn, but it’ll get you there for less than a
third of the price. But here, too, the earth is
paying: according to the most recent EEA
figures, CO2 emissions for road passengers
are nearly four times those of rails.
All railway companies pay distance-based
charges in the EU. Not so for road vehicles.
The Brussels-based Community of European
Railway and Infrastructure Companies
(the CER, comprising 76 Europe-associated
rail bodies), lobbies for fairer competitive
conditions for rail. CER and European Commission
figures show tolls and time-based
charges are currently only applied to trucks
on 20-25 percent of Europe’s network,
even less for passenger transport. To even
6
EXBERLINER 167