Polluting the Planet Before You Take Off

Airports are disastrously inefficient buildings which belch greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and contribute hugely to climate change, a European study has found.

Airlines are under increasing pressure to use more efficient aircraft to reduce the damage the industry is doing to the planet as it continues to grow.

In its defense the industry says it produces only 2% of the world's carbon dioxide, and 12% of the total from the transport industry, and that it is therefore a tiny problem compared with private cars which produce 74% of transport's CO2.

But in this battle of statistics the role of airports, the vast air-conditioned waiting rooms and shopping malls containing thousands of waiting passengers, has not so far been taken into account.

Now a European Union study has shown that Europe's 500 airports in the 28 member countries together emit as much CO2 as a city of 50 million people.

The paper says airport buildings are disastrously inefficient structures which produce large quantities of greenhouse gases.  Big airports each have emissions equal those of a city of 100,000 people.

With new airports and vast terminals being built across the planet at an ever-increasing rate to provide for booming international tourism as well as business travel, pressure is bound to grow on the industry to improve its performance.

In a bid to try to curb the problem, the EU has begun a three-year program costing more than €3 million ($4m) to try to get the continent's largest airports to be less wasteful of energy.  The plan is to cut emissions by 20% over the period the program runs.

Polluting the Planet Before You Take Off