Though air travel represents only about 3% of total world emissions, traffic is increasing quickly even as concerns over climate change multiply. To make matters worse, because airplanes fly at high altitudes, they give off large amounts of nitrous oxide, which is estimated to produce double the warming effects of carbon dioxide.
Plane travel is more energy efficient than car travel per passenger mile, but far less so than going by train, leading some advocates to push for the outright elimination of airline flights. But with transcontinental and transoceanic flights still facts of life and few options for their replacement, environmentalists, government regulators, and manufacturers are considering improvements to aircraft that will reduce emissions.
Here we’ve detailed a number of advances that may make airplanes a more acceptable mode of transport in a carbon-reduced future.
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Filed under: Articles in English, Environment
