BERLIN: Travel-loving Germans are being urged to skip air travel and vacation at home instead to save the environment — calls that the country's travel business association on Monday dismissed as "arrogant."
German environmentalists and one senior official have over recent days appealed for people to avoid flying for pleasure trips. Media have dubbed it the "Sylt or Seychelles" debate — contrasting a bracingly breezy German North Sea resort island with the Indian Ocean archipelago favored by divers and snorkelers.
"The demands that Germans should only vacation at home are as arrogant as they are unrealistic," said Klaus Laepple, the head of the DRV travel association. "It's surely not the job of the people's representatives to forbid German to travel."
Germany, which holds the European Union and Group of Eight presidencies, is advocating strong action against climate change amid a worldwide rise in concern over global warning and what has been the country's warmest winter since records began more than a century ago.
Andreas Troge, chairman of the Federal Environment Agency, warned that "anyone who flies to Southeast Asia should know that in so doing, 6 tons of carbon dioxide are produced," the Bild am Sonntag newspaper reported Sunday.
Meanwhile, a train trip to the Baltic Sea cost produces only 35 kilograms (77 pounds), Troge was quoted as saying.
The director of the Atmosfair environmental group, Dietrich Brockhagen, said that "the long-distance vacations are the problem — diving vacations in the Maldives or a tour of Thailand."
In response, Laepple's DRV pointed out that Germans support the economies of many developing countries with their yen for travel, which leads them to spend €60.5 billion (US$79 million) per year on outbound travel — the most in the world.
Better solutions would be to work out more direct air routes that would cut flight times, expand airports to reduce the time planes circle waiting to land and develop more fuel-efficient jet engines.
Germans alone could not solve the problem, the association said. "We don't need an isolated solution," it said in a statement. "We need a worldwide concept for international air traffic" under the aegis of the International Civil Aviation Organization and the United Nations.
Germany's Transport Ministry said Monday it was working on a proposal to have airports charge higher landing fees for planes with less efficient engines, and to cut fees for more fuel-efficient craft.
The ministry said it plans a three-year trial period beginning at the end of this year with airports participating on a voluntary basis.
Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel, who has been a leading voice in calls for Germany and Europe to take a leading role in fighting climate change, criticized calls to give up flying away on vacation.
To "begin the debate with 'people should not fly anymore on the weekend' — this I consider damaging for the climate debate," Gabriel said. Those making such warnings, he added, "just stir up fear and don't give people a perspective."
Source IHT
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