World’s Poorest Countries Want Levy on Airline Tickets

Travel Blog  •  Joanna Kakissis  •  04.08.09 | 2:16 PM ET

Photo by oxfam via Flickr (Creative Commons)

Rich nations produce most of the world’s CO2 emissions but poor countries often pay the price, suffering through worsening droughts, intense flooding, rising sea levels, crop failures and pollution. Sometimes, their citizens are forced to become economic refugees, and leave their homes altogether.

So in the name of climate justice, representatives of the world’s 49 poorest countries told negotiators at UN climate talks in Bonn that air passengers should each pay a $6 emissions levy per flight, The Guardian reports. This could raise about $10 billion a year that poor nations could use to help adapt to climate change.

Some of the world’s leading airlines aren’t too sweet on the proposal, authored for the 49 nations by the Oxford Institute of Environment Studies. They would rather see individual airlines securing pollution permits that would be based on the carbon content of their yearly fuel purchases. Auctioning the permits would yield money that would be divided between the UN’s adaptation fund for developing nations and an effort that aims to save forests in poorer nations.

Tags: Air Travel, Airworld, Eco Travel, Global Village, Europe, Germany, News and Briefs

Joanna Kakissis's writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe and The Washington Post, among other publications. A contributor to the World Hum blog, she's currently a Ted Scripps fellow in environmental journalism at the University of Colorado in Boulder.


3 Comments for World’s Poorest Countries Want Levy on Airline Tickets

Hal Amen 04.08.09 | 3:12 PM ET

Forget $6 per flight, I’d be happy to pay $6 into this fund for every ticket I buy.

nun 04.08.09 | 4:55 PM ET

Fine.  Let’s stop giving donation to poor countries and just give them this $6 tax instead.

Grizzly Bear Mom 04.09.09 | 10:47 AM ET

Good grief, I thought you meant $6 per passenger and agreed mentally.  $6 per flight is way easy.  I think that greener travel would be encouraged if the cost were proportional to the pollutants spewed.

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