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They too suffered from increased anger from the right wing, so when Jacinda resigned, they elected a right-wing government.

Air traffic altogether is only 2% of global emissions. We could focus efforts to reduce emissions elsewhere without the negative effects on logistics and people traveling. Even if you completely eliminated all air traffic tomorrow it would be insignificant compared to other sources. Not that I think it’s a bad idea to reduce emissions from air traffic, but it’s going to highly impact people’s lives for barely a dent in emissions.

And before someone comments about the ultra rich and their private planes, their emissions is basically nothing compared to the rest of air traffic.

Yes but it's a hugely disproportionate amount for one person, how do people not get this?!

Using the same logic, i shouldn't do anything about climate change myself, because everything I can personally do is basically nothing.

I really hate excusing billionaires in their private jets, but you could argue they do not have the money to make a difference in this case.

Technology improves efficiency as time goes on but the biggest change under airline control is switching over to biofuel so at least the carbon emissions are currently active carbon rather than adding carbon that had been sequestered for hundreds of millions of years. So biofuel exists and I believe has been approved, perhaps even internationally, however not much is made and it’s expensive. Private jets can’t spend enough to change that. We need commitments from major airlines to spend enough to invent biofuel scaling way up, and we almost certainly need government and international pressure or encouragement.

Of course that avoids the argument whether private jets are an excess the greater we can afford. And that avoids the argument that the rest of us need investments in rail so we have an alternative

2045: We are now in receivership as the impact of the Climate Wars and collapse of the global food supply means we can no longer fly. Wellington airport is 2 feet underwater anyway.

They still descent with flaps and spoilers out, instead of trading off altitude for speed slowly. They fly with speeds of 400+kts, but just like with cars, going slower saves fuel.

I agree with you wholeheartedly that aviation fuel subsidies must end, and train travel should be prioritized above all else.

That said, it's not true that going slower saves fuel, for multiple reasons.

• One is that the primary resistance planes encounter is air resistance, which is lowest in the highest parts of the atmosphere, because the air is thinner. But since planes use air pressure differences to stay up, thinner air means you have to go faster if you want to stay aloft.
• Even discounting that, going slower means a higher angle of attack for the plane, meaning the plane will pitch up more to maintain altitude. This actually increases drag, and that's true for everything from airliners to small propeller planes. Point is, the speed where fuel consumption is minimal for a given distance is not going to be near the lower end of the scale, more likely you'll find it in the upper third, above 400 knots for an airliner.
• The first point may be valid, but since going higher saves fuel, steep descents may actually also save fuel, as an idling engine will still consume a lot of fuel. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that going 400kts at altitude, then cutting the engines idle, and extending flaps and spoilers reduces flight time and thus fuel consumed compared to just cutting the engines and slowly descending. BTW you need flaps and spoilers to land, so it's more of a when rather than an if you'll open them.
• And finally, air pilots and airlines already optimise for fuel consumption, because that's in their interest as well. Fueling an airliner is hella expensive even with the massive subsidies. It should be more expensive, we agree on that, but slowing down airliners is just going to make fuel consumption and emissions even worse.

As an American: Government? That’s scary and against the constitution.

Profit this quarter matters more to these people than how many die in the next century.

They’d rather make a dollar today than save a life tomorrow.

We're going to grow up our carbon emissions this year and the next one too, have no actual plans after that, but don't need to worry, by 2050 We're going to cut emissions by half.

Industry self-regulation, especially with regard to climate, is a joke. We either start fixing the system, or we'll burn.

Yep. Any promised future targets are just marketing hype.

Then: "Eco-friendly is really trending now, we'll base our image around that"

Now: "It's more profitable to drop the eco targets, so were dropping them"

A very good question.

It is a very common misconception that trees and plants just always absorb CO2. The Carbon (C) in CO2 does not just disappear when plants produce Oxygen (O2). Plants use it as material to grow themselves and their fruits. Once they are fully grown, they don't really absorb any more. So if you burn a tree in a fireplace and grow a new tree in its place, the new tree will eventually re-capture all the CO2 burning the wood released as it grows. This works even better with fast growing plants used for biofuel. The CO2 released by burning biofuel is re-captured when you grow more plants to make more biofuel.

So chopping down a forest to create fields is bad in the short term since it releases and does not recapture the CO2 from the trees, but is sustainable in the long term since you "recycle" the same Carbon.