Four plane flights, in all for all, in his life, including two in his youth. “I said four, it could be two, it could be five, I didn’t do the calculations”, specifies, at the microphone of France Inter, Jean-Marc Jancovici. It was November 24. Journalist Léa Salamé then questioned the member of the High Council for the Climate and co-founder of the think-tank The Shift Project and consulting firm Carbon 4specialized in energy transition issues, on a passage from an interview he had given to Parisian a month earlier.
Jean-Marc Jancovici then said he was “fairly favorable to a communist system: rich or poor, you would be entitled to three or four flights in your life, including two in your youth”. Léa Salamé is not the only one to widen her eyes. 20 minutes has therefore polled its readers on what they think of such a quota.
“Return to Neanderthal” or inevitable perspective
Sign that the subject does not leave indifferent, we received nearly 200 responses. In the lot, a certain number sharply reject this perspective, perceived as an attack on the fundamental freedom to move. Vincent thus fears a return “to the beginning of the 19th century”. “In the Neanderthal”, adds Erick. “Fed up with these ecologists who want to punish the French, yet among the most sober in CO2 among the developed countries”, then decides Hervé, not the only one to react like this, often moreover in less flowery terms.
However, anti-quotas remain largely in the minority. “I do not even understand that the question arises, obviously that it is urgent to take this measure”, answers Romain. Even Nathalie, who has her brother in Madrid, or Ludovic, resident in Japan, say they are in favor of the quota. Or at least resign themselves to it. “Alas, we no longer have a choice”, slips the second. “Ineluctable” comes up in many contributions (45!). Some even claim not to have waited to drastically limit their use of the plane.
The decline of oil
Inevitable, really? Jean-Marc Jancovici links this need to the coming decline in world oil production, announced in particular by the Shift Project. However, “the plane is today 8% of oil worldwide”, he recalls. Clearly: less oil would mean fewer planes, and therefore the need to share access. Pierre Leflaive, transport manager of the Climate Action Network (RAC)adds a second imperative to the equation: the fight against climate change, to which the aviation sector must also contribute by reducing its greenhouse gas emissions.
“There is a consensus to say that it will not succeed without a reduction in its traffic, he slips. Samee Augustin de Romanet, CEO of the Aéroports de Paris groupnow evokes a period of twenty to thirty years during which travelers should exercise sobriety, the time that the technologies promised to arrive at the “green plane” are mature. We can doubt this bet. In any case, we have everything to gain by reducing the use of air travel. »
Regulation by quotas, fairer than by prices?
“To do this, there are only two options, summarizes Grégoire Carpentier, co-founder of the collective Supaero décarbo, which works to decarbonize the sector. Either we play on the price signal, by increasing ticket prices, or on volumes, which can involve the establishment of quotas. The first option “will lead to social revolts”, anticipates Vianney. This is a fear that often comes up in the contributions received: that price regulation reserves the use of the plane a little more to the richest. “In 2018, 1% of the world’s population caused half of CO2 emissions”, recalls Florence, who draws this statistic of the study published in the journal Global Environmental Change in 2020.
Therefore, the establishment of quotas is the fairest solution, point out Julien, Vianney, Jean-David and others among our Internet users. Many are even beginning to imagine the contours of such a system. Alain-Pierre and Agnès already invite to treat flights differently according to their reasons: tourist, professional, family, by asking for more flexibility for the last two. Others insist on the need to prohibit any exchange of “rights to fly”, between those who do not use them and those who want to exceed their quotas, seen as counterproductive. “Rather than a number of flights, a kilometer budget should be set,” says Nicolas.
Not limited to the plane?
And why restrict yourself to the plane? “I would be in favor of an ‘energy saving’ quota per person, taking into account the plane, but also the car, the train…, says Marie. Because I may use the plane more than my neighbour, but I don’t have a car and most often travel by train. Fabien launches a similar idea with “a carbon footprint card”, with an emissions quota not to be exceeded and that everyone could manage in their own way. A height taken to which Grégoire Carpentier calls. “Whether it is for the climate or the tensions expected on the energy markets, we will have to ask ourselves more and more the question of how we share this energy cake, he insists. What part do we give to air transport, what other to the transport of goods, what other to daily travel…? »
This is the whole point of Jean-Marc Jancovici’s proposal, sees Pierre Leflaive. “It illustrates well the constraint towards which we are heading if we persist in defending an increase in air traffic at the current rate”, he slips. Grégoire Carpentier nevertheless observes the first tremors, beyond Augustin de Romanet’s change of speech. “It is, in France, the end of the first internal lines where there is an alternative by train of less than 2h30, or, in the Netherlands, the decision to cap air traffic at Amsterdam-Schiphol airport”, he mentions.
“The longer we wait…”
“It’s still far too shy,” judge for his part Pierre Leflaive, who notes for example that many airport extension projects are still in the pipeline. “In Lille, Nice, Marseille”, he lists. The “transport” manager of the RAC also recalls that the initial proposal of the citizens’ convention for the climate was to eliminate the internal lines that the train provides in less than 4 hours. “Before arriving at quotas, we could already introduce a progressive tax that would mean that the more we fly, the more we would pay for it,” he suggests. “Efforts made are better than efforts suffered,” concludes Laurent, one of our readers.
Flight quotas that would push us to rethink our relationship to travel?
While a majority of Internet users who responded to us say they are in favor of the introduction of air flight quotas, few evade the societal upheavals that the introduction of such a system would have. On tourism in particular. “Our whole representation of what travel is, of what physical distances entail, will have to be modified, judges Christophe, for all that in favor of quotas. The world which until then, in the words of tour operators’ advertisements, seemed to be “offering itself to us”, will now retreat far away. “So what do you do with the need to dream of the Other that animates these millions of traveling heads?, he continues, In my opinion, it will have to be channeled, redirected to new destinations, perhaps closer, to accommodate this initial need. »
Another track, put forward by Hervé, for those who want to discover the world: leave much less often, but longer: “Better a trip of three months every five years than ten trips of fifteen days during the same period”, assures he. “We must give meaning to travel, stop mass tourism, abounds Julien. But that can only be done if, at the same time, we improve the train network and if we offer the possibility of taking long holidays to make a very long trip every 10 years over several months. »