The final months of 2023 saw confirmation that key indicators of climate change are getting worse, and rapidly. Sea temperatures are already way ahead of expectations, likewise the incidence and severity of heatwaves, drought, flooding and wildfires. There is no prospect that the Paris Agreement ambition, to hold the excess of global mean temperature over pre-industrial levels to 1.5° C, can be attained.

The 1.5° figure was chosen because climate scientists had advised that a 2° limit was insufficiently ambitious, and that anything beyond 1.5° courted risks of runaway feedbacks, such as methane release from the Siberian tundra or accelerated depletion of the polar ice caps.

Those climate experts who felt there was sufficient time to avert the worst long-term outcomes have joined the worriers these last few months. The time available has not been used to halt the rise in worldwide emissions.

The real-world climate data for 2023 has been depressing and the recent meeting in Abu Dhabi yielded no concrete agreement on the future action agenda. The very title of the gathering, which drew an attendance of no less than 70,000 between delegates and media, tells its own story. It was called COP 28, the COP stands for Conference of the Parties, essentially all the countries in the world represented by their governments.

The 28 means that there have been 27 previous gatherings. The first was in Berlin in 1995, following the Rio Earth Summit of 1992 and the 1990 publication of the first assessment report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Despite an enormous expansion of scientific effort in measuring climate patterns in the period since, the headline conclusion of the early reports has not been materially altered or qualified.

The conclusion was that greenhouse gas emissions had risen to dangerous levels and that damaging outcomes were likely unless the growth in emissions could be halted and ultimately reversed.

The record of international action over the last 30 years has been a catalogue of failure and COP 28 failed to deliver a single substantial initiative for mitigating emissions.

The media coverage focussed on the enormous gathering in Abu Dhabi and the contribution of the event itself to emissions from air travel, responsible for around 3% of the world total.

A meeting of the world’s governments could paradoxically have been an ideal opportunity for policy change on aviation, a small but interesting example of the reasons for policy paralysis.

Since the 1944 conclusion of the Chicago Convention, a binding international treaty on civil aviation negotiated in the safety of the windy city by Lake Michigan during World War II, no country has been free to levy taxes on international aviation, either on fuel or on ticket prices.

A similar restriction, exempting shipping, is enshrined in the international maritime agreements. Some countries tax domestic flying only or have ad hoc departure charges, but there is no universal fuel tax nor can ticket prices include indirect taxes like VAT. Instead, the industry hides behind the 1944 treaty, concluded 80 years ago when there was virtually no civil aviation.

International treaties can only be amended through agreement and while the European Commission has shown an interest in reform, Europe cannot go it alone and the industry contents itself with blue-sky fantasies about new aviation fuels made from re-cycled cooking oil. It may never be feasible, even with technological miracles, to power aircraft with batteries and the best that can be done is to expose air transport to the same taxation regime as, for example, car usage in Europe, which would mean fuel taxes and VAT.

If aviation fuel paid carbon taxes to cover the emissions externality at the same shadow price imposed on other industries, tickets would be dearer by about 10% or 12%. VAT is 20% in most countries (23% in Ireland), so the two together would raise ticket prices by about one-third and would cut passenger volumes over time (it would be wise to impose both charges gradually) by roughly enough over a decade to offset the expected aviation growth.

Instead, the media coverage of COP 28 included outrage at ministers flying to meetings rather than at the absence of any serious agenda at said meetings. The countries of the Gulf region enjoy some of the lowest retail prices for motor fuel in the world, just 55c/l in Saudi Arabia for example.

In Ireland, an opinion poll registered public support for a ban on private jet travel, responsible for less than 1% of all civil aviation emissions, themselves just 3% of the world total and below motor fuel consumption in the Gulf region alone.

Those European countries keen to lead on a credible taxation regime for emissions, including aviation, deserve Ireland’s support.

On a separate note, wishing season’s greetings to readers and a prosperous 2024.