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BA aircraft to help with environmental studies

The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change believes that emissions from aircraft may be up to four times more destructive than regular carbon dioxide producing transportation. According to a German aviation research institute, the white trails left criss-crossing the sky go on to form clouds that have a direct greenhouse effect. Nitrogen dioxide forms ozone, a greenhouse gas, when emitted at altitude.

Despite the possible negative repercussions on the industry, BA is keen to present itself as responsible and has volunteered to make its flight data available to the research.

A BA spokesman said: "While research has given us a solid understanding of the effect carbon dioxide generated by flying has on the environment, the climate impact of our nitrogen dioxide emissions and other effects is less well understood.

We are committed to improving scientific understanding in this area and are looking at whether we can use our aircraft to assist in the collection of atmospheric data."

In addition to contributing £50,000 on workshops organised by Cambridge University, BA also announced recently that it had made its voluntary carbon offsetting scheme easier to use. A wind farm in China and forest protection projects in Brazil are just two programmes passengers can support in a single transaction when buying their tickets.

The EU has already stated its intention to impose carbon offsetting on all flights departing from airports in its jurisdiction by 2012.

Studies have already revealed, for example, that aircraft cruising at 6,000ft lower than normal may reduce trails by 45 percent, but this would burn six percent more fuel.


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Jennifer Jones Editorial


18/01/2008



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