Wellington - International air travel produces about 2 per cent of the world's carbon dioxide emissions - about the same as greenhouse gases created by the makers of handmade clay bricks, a former head of the World Trade Organization (WTO) said Friday. Nearly 97 per cent of the world's clay bricks are produced in developing countries with China accounting for about 700 billion a year and India 140 billion, Mike Moore said in an article in Wellington's Dominion Post.
He said the brick industry in India was the country's third-largest user of coal, a principal producer of carbon emissions, which are blamed for global warming. In China, he said, it was the fourth-largest.
Moore said the aviation industry was an easy target of environmental groups and called for a sense of proportion in the debate about climate change.
Total carbon emissions in New Zealand and neighbouring Australia were the same as only a few weeks of energy growth in China and India, he said.
Moore's comments came as two university scientists published research saying that carbon emissions from international tourists' air travel to New Zealand equalled total emissions from the country's coal, gas and oil-fired power generation.
Inga Smith and Craig Rodger of Otago University said the carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions from return flights by the 2.4 million tourists who visited New Zealand in 2005 was nearly 7.9 million tons, about the same as the greenhouse gases produced by all the country's coal, gas and oil-fired power generators.
"Awareness of the environmental impact of long-haul flights is increasingly influencing tourists' destination decisions," Rodger said.
"As tourism is New Zealand's number one export earner, these findings are cause for some concern," he added. "It should sound a loud and clear wake-up call."
David Parker, the minister responsible for climate change issues, told the New Zealand Herald that air travel emissions were a concern that the government was not trying to minimize.
He said state-owned Air New Zealand already had one of the most fuel-efficient fleets in the world and was taking world-leading steps like a joint venture with Rolls Royce and Boeing for the trial use of biofuel blends in its aircraft.
