As a result of tourism and the increasing number of people travelling, there is a growing demand for more flights. What problems does this have for the environment? What measures could be taken?

Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, there was an increasing demand for flights in most parts of the world.

This

was damaging to the environment, but it is possible to mitigate it in some way.

This

essay will discuss those ideas.

To begin

with, the primary problem with an increased number of flights is that these produce plenty of

emissions

, which are damaging to the environment. Whilst air travel is responsible for just 2% of global CO2

emissions

and 12% of CO2 from transportation,

this

figure was rising and may continue to rise after the pandemic. It has been well established that

such

emissions

have an array of negative effects, the most serious of which is climate change.

Although

there are many industries that need to take action in order to have any real impact on

this

, aviation is certainly

one

that is

in many cases non-essential. The pandemic has severely reduced the number of flights, but

this

is beginning to rise again and

one

day will probably return to pre-pandemic levels, so it is worth investigating ways of reducing the damage done when the sky is again filled with aeroplanes. There are various options, with the ideal

one

being the use of greener technologies, but

this

is something that may not occur for many years yet, so perhaps a better way is to explore carbon credits and similar economic incentives. Basically, these work by having people pay to offset their personal carbon

emissions

so that the damage done by taking a flight is somewhat mitigated. Though not a perfect solution, it is

one

of only a few that are realistic. In conclusion, the aviation industry is highly damaging to the environment but there are some steps that could be taken to reduce its damage, including the introduction of a carbon credit system.