Every year without fail there’s a mass exodus of politicians from this island to far flung places around the globe to mark St Patrick’s Day.
I know our biggest annual celebration is seen as a great opportunity to promote all things green to the rest of the world.
Irish people are everywhere, making waves in all sorts of sectors and it’s a wonderful thing to see us welcomed with open arms.
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Dinner and drinks will be shared, faces we’re more used to seeing here splayed across US news channels, conversations had and bread broken to mark the occasion with maybe a few exchanges on potential future business deals.
Whether Sinn Fein, the DUP, Alliance, SDLP, the UUP or politicians from over the border - they’re all away to shout about how great this wee place is - and it is.
But today I want to talk about the flight emissions that result from those trips.
Not to get a dig in about the C02 emissions this one day adds to the carbon footprint of people from this island but to talk about the aviation sector as a whole.
I take flights, as many do. I was in Somalia recently to report on the impact of the climate crisis on the people starving there after three years with no rain. And that would not have been possible, had I not seen it with my own eyes.
In an ideal world, there would be Somali reporters who could feed back what’s happening in their own country. But when women have no rights, children are dying in their thousands and the threat of violence permeates their every day lives it would be a very brave person to stick their head above that parapet and tell the truth.
Sometimes there is no other way to do a job but to jump on a plane and that’s the problem. I only hope those stories encourage people to put a little extra in their Trocaire boxes this year to help the people suffering most because of global warming.
But when it comes to aviation as an industry, it has a long way to go. Their whole business model is based on encouraging people to fly, often - but sometimes getting a plane is unavoidable.
Personally we can do a few things to lessen our carbon footprint if we have to. It’s always possible to offset flights by planting trees or going vegan, as I have, to reduce my carbon footprint on the world. You can cycle or take public transport instead of jumping in your car, not waste food, plant for nature and so much more.
But there’s a conversation to be had about the necessity of trips. I’m sure all the countries Irish politicians are visiting right now have ambassadors in place - and that is a sticking point for some.
Some might ask if they really needed to travel the world for St Paddy’s when they say they are serious about the climate crisis? I’ll leave that up to you to decide. Maybe it’s become so ingrained now that it’s a habit they won’t change.
Then there’s the difference in emissions your trip racks up depending whether you took up more room in business class or flew economy.
A report carried out by Cork sustainable energy firm Wizer Energy found business class flights create 3.44 more tonnes on average than economy.
That said, I don’t know how all of them have travelled to their destinations.
Whatever your view, at the very heart of this, it’s an aviation industry problem and it’s for them to fix.
According to the Aviation Environment Federation, flying is almost completely dependent on fossil fuel kerosene and is the most carbon intensive form of travel in most cases.
Taking one long haul flight can generate around twice the emissions of driving a medium sized car for a year.
Europe’s Emissions Trading Scheme will only go so far to offsetting the carbon cost of flights.
And neither Northern Ireland or the Republic tax flights - in order to remain competitive. That would be a good place to start as that revenue could be used to help drive down our emissions in other ways across the island.
I would support taxing private jets, those sitting in first class or business class, much more considering the richest in the world rack up the most air miles.
Maybe we take the money made from taxing those flights to insulate every home and cut the carbon cost of heating or develop internal travel networks as near to carbon neutral as they can be.
I would also like to see much more progress from the aviation industry itself on developing fuels that are climate friendly and reducing their energy and plastic consumption.
Whatever way you look at it, governments need to do a lot more to incentivise aviation to find a more climate friendly way of operating.
Closed shop on biodiversity
The Department for Infrastructure held a Biodiversity Awareness Conference earlier this week and reporters weren’t invited.
I came across the event on social media, amid a swirl of backlash and claims of greenwashing from the public.
From DfI’s Twitter feed I can see they had speakers from NIEA, DfI rivers team and saw presentations on active travel and climate.
I think it’s great DfI are talking about biodiversity given a lot of what they do has a major impact on it.
But I was absolutely horrified that given the massive public interest in just about everything they do, they decided to make it a closed shop.
Freedom of the press to report on matters of public interest is an essential pillar to any truly democratic society.
This was a government department, discussing public issues at an event no doubt paid for by the public purse.
And it was well and truly in the public interest going by the reaction on social media.
But they denied us all the right to hear what was said.
DfI said: “It was a staff conference and no press were invited.”
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