As the argument rages as to the relative merits of the European Commission's proposed Emissions Trading Scheme versus the UK's Airline Passenger Duty charge, due to double next month, transatlantic premium startup Silverjet has come up with another idea.
In an open letter to UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, Silverjet chief executive Lawrence Hunt outlines how his airline plans to become the first carbon-neutral carrier when it begins service from London to New York on 25 January.
Hunt says his airline is working with the Carbon Neutral Company to introduce a mandatory carbon offset contribution, giving passengers the opportunity to reinvest their "carbon points" in a number of climate-friendly projects around the world.
The Edinburgh Centre for Carbon Management has assessed the carbon emissions of the Silverjet fleet and associated ground activity in a Verified Emission Reductions scheme.
This scheme, Hunt says, ensures that 100% of the investment ends up in the chosen offset projects, rather than in the UK government's proposed Certified Emission Reductions scheme, which requires "a significant amount of the offset investment to go into bureaucracy and administration", he says.
If the airline industry were to simply charge its passengers 90 pence ($1.80) for each hour they fly on average, he says, they could neutralise the carbon pollution created by the aviation industry.
How will everyone else respond to that one?
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