Fourteen organizations including Robin Wood, BUND, Attac, and the Federal Association against Aircraft Noise (BVF), released a joint statement, which reminded the political parties of Germany, including the Social Democrats (SPD), the Greens and the Free Democratic Party (FDP), of their climate protection promises during the German election campaign.
Federal elections were held in Germany on September 26, 2021, to elect the members of the 20th Bundestag. The SPD came first with 25.7% of the vote, followed by the conservative alliance (CDU) of outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel on 24.1% - its worst result ever. SPD is currently in coalition talks with the Greens and FDP to form a coalition government.
According to the environmental organizations’ statement, the Paris Agreement, the Federal Constitutional Court’s climate share from March of this year and the German Climate Protection Act all demand that climate-friendly alternatives to air travel be given preference.
“Air traffic is the most unjust form of mobility that is harmful to the climate. Abolishing unnecessary short-haul flights is a long overdue and easy-to-implement immediate measure for climate protection,” said Jonas Asal, air traffic officer at the environmental organization Robin Wood.
The environmental organizations demand an immediate ban on ultra-short-haul flights whose destinations can be reached by Intercity Express within four hours. By further optimizing the railways, it would be possible to move to the railways for journeys of up to 600km.
A representative Forsa survey from September shows that around 50% of participants even demand a complete ban on domestic flights. “Half of all domestic German flights can already be replaced by a train journey of a maximum of four hours, saving 1.6 million tons of CO2 annually,” said Werner Reh, spokesman for the Transport Working Group of the Association for the Environment and Nature Conservation Germany (BUND). “It is completely incomprehensible why ultra-short-haul flights are still allowed in times of the climate crisis.”
As a second step, short-haul flights of up to 1,500km could also be made superfluous. Tamara Hanstein from Attac explained: “The future government must set the course for sustainable rail transport. Rail travel must become much more attractive and cheaper.”
According to the environmental organizations’ statement, authorities and companies must change their travel expense guidelines and set incentives so that train and video conferences are used. To accelerate the relocation of air traffic, it is necessary to remove unfair subsidies for air traffic. In August of this year, eight environmental associations had already presented a package of measures for more climate protection in aviation.