The Sky on Fire: Aviation, Oil, and the Climate Future

I was in Mumbai in 2019, writing a piece on the economy, and the domestic terminal at Chhatrapati Shivaji airport was genuinely one of the busiest places I've ever been.

And this was before the post-COVID travel rebound.

Y ese crecimiento no va a parar.

And that growth isn't stopping.

Se prevé que la India se convierta en el tercer mercado de aviación más grande del mundo para 2030.

India is projected to become the third-largest aviation market in the world by 2030.

Así que el dilema climático es enorme: ¿cómo permites que cientos de millones de personas accedan al transporte aéreo que el mundo desarrollado lleva décadas dando por sentado, y al mismo tiempo reduces las emisiones globales?

So the climate dilemma is enormous: how do you allow hundreds of millions of people access to the air travel that the developed world has taken for granted for decades, while also reducing global emissions?

That question has a name in climate politics.

It's called the equity problem.

Rich countries got wealthy on cheap fossil fuels, then built enormous carbon-intensive infrastructures, and now they want to pull up the ladder.

Es una crítica muy legítima.

It's a very legitimate critique.

Cuando Europa o los Estados Unidos dicen que la aviación debe reducir sus emisiones, los países en desarrollo responden, con razón, que vosotros ya tuvisteis vuestras décadas de crecimiento barato.

When Europe or the United States say aviation must cut its emissions, developing countries rightly respond: you already had your decades of cheap growth.

No es justo exigirnos que paguemos por vuestra historia.

It's not fair to make us pay for your history.

And the technology that's supposed to solve this, sustainable aviation fuel, SAF, is still nowhere near ready to fill the gap.

Last figures I saw put SAF at something like one percent of total global jet fuel consumption.

One percent.

Correcto.

Correct.

Y el SAF puede costar dos, tres, incluso cuatro veces más que el queroseno convencional, dependiendo de cómo se produce.

And SAF can cost two, three, even four times more than conventional jet fuel, depending on how it's produced.

Hay varias rutas tecnológicas: a partir de residuos agrícolas, de grasas usadas de cocina, incluso de CO₂ capturado directamente del aire.

There are several technological pathways: from agricultural waste, from used cooking oils, even from CO₂ captured directly from the air.

Pero ninguna está lista para escalar al nivel que necesitamos.

But none of them are ready to scale to the level we need.

Used cooking oil.

I love that.

Somewhere in a refinery in the Netherlands there's a vat of old French fry grease being turned into a transatlantic flight.

Exactamente eso.

Exactly that.

Y el problema con el aceite de cocina usado es que simplemente no hay suficiente en el mundo para alimentar toda la aviación global.

And the problem with used cooking oil is that there simply isn't enough of it in the world to fuel all of global aviation.

Algunos estudios estiman que si usáramos todo el aceite de cocina reciclado del planeta, cubriríamos tal vez el cuatro o cinco por ciento de la demanda de combustible de aviación.

Some studies estimate that if we used every drop of recycled cooking oil on the planet, we'd cover maybe four or five percent of aviation fuel demand.

So the India crisis right now, airlines threatening to ground planes because of a geopolitical conflict halfway across the region, is actually a preview.

A preview of what happens when the system breaks down, and when fossil fuel dependency is exposed as a vulnerability, not just for the climate but for basic economic function.

Y hay un punto histórico importante aquí.

And there's an important historical point here.

Esto no es la primera vez.

This isn't the first time.

El shock del petróleo de 1973, la crisis de 2008, la pandemia de COVID.

The 1973 oil shock, the 2008 crisis, the COVID pandemic.

Cada vez que el precio del petróleo se dispara o el suministro se interrumpe, la industria aérea entra en crisis.

Every time oil prices spike or supply is disrupted, the airline industry enters crisis.

Y cada vez que el precio baja, la industria suspira con alivio y vuelve al mismo modelo.

And every time the price drops, the industry breathes with relief and goes back to the same model.

It's a recurring bet that the disruption will end.

And for fifty years that bet has paid off.

The question is whether this time there's more structural pressure, because you've got the Iran war on one end and climate targets on the other, and aviation is caught in the middle.

La industria aérea tiene compromisos formales de llegar a cero emisiones netas para 2050.

The airline industry has formal commitments to reach net zero emissions by 2050.

La organización internacional IATA hizo esa promesa en 2021.

The international body IATA made that pledge in 2021.

Pero los expertos climáticos independientes son bastante escépticos, porque esos compromisos dependen en gran medida del SAF y de tecnologías que todavía no existen a escala.

But independent climate experts are fairly skeptical, because those commitments depend heavily on SAF and technologies that don't yet exist at scale.

And net zero by 2050 means nothing if the industry doubles in size over the next twenty-five years, which is exactly what the projections show for markets like India.

The math just doesn't work unless efficiency gains outpace growth, and historically they haven't.

Hay un concepto que los ingenieros aeronáuticos llaman la paradoja de la eficiencia.

There's a concept aeronautical engineers call the efficiency paradox.

Los aviones modernos son mucho más eficientes por kilómetro y por pasajero que los de hace cuarenta años.

Modern planes are far more efficient per kilometer and per passenger than those of forty years ago.

Un Boeing 787 usa aproximadamente el veinte o veinticinco por ciento menos de combustible por asiento que el 747 original.

A Boeing 787 uses roughly twenty to twenty-five percent less fuel per seat than the original 747.

Pero como hay muchos más vuelos y pasajeros, las emisiones totales han seguido subiendo.

But because there are far more flights and passengers, total emissions have kept going up.

It's the same dynamic you see in car fuel efficiency.

Vehicles got dramatically more efficient between 1990 and 2020, but people bought bigger cars and drove more miles, so total emissions from road transport still went up in a lot of countries.

Exactamente.

Exactly.

Los economistas lo llaman el efecto rebote.

Economists call it the rebound effect.

Cuanto más eficiente y barato se vuelve algo, más lo usamos.

The more efficient and cheap something becomes, the more we use it.

Y en el caso de la aviación, la eficiencia ha permitido que los precios de los billetes bajen en términos reales durante décadas, lo que ha puesto el vuelo al alcance de más y más personas.

And in aviation's case, efficiency has allowed ticket prices to fall in real terms for decades, putting flying within reach of more and more people.

Que es bueno desde el punto de vista del acceso, pero complicado desde el punto de vista del clima.

Which is good from an access standpoint, but complicated from a climate standpoint.

There's a tension in climate policy that almost nobody wants to say out loud: at some point, the honest conversation involves fewer flights.

Not zero flights, but fewer.

And that is politically toxic in every democracy I've ever covered.

En Francia hubo un debate muy serio hace unos años sobre prohibir los vuelos domésticos en rutas que se pueden hacer en menos de dos horas y media en tren.

In France there was a very serious debate a few years back about banning domestic flights on routes doable in under two and a half hours by train.

Y al final se aprobó una versión muy limitada de esa idea.

And in the end a very limited version of that idea passed.

Muy limitada.

Very limited.

Cubrió solo tres rutas, creo.

It covered only three routes, I think.

Hubo protestas, cabildeo de las aerolíneas, y la ley quedó bastante vaciada.

There was lobbying, pushback from airlines, and the law ended up quite hollowed out.

France has a train network that can actually support that kind of substitution.

India, for all its recent infrastructure investment, is nowhere near that yet.

You can't tell someone in Kolkata who needs to get to Chennai that they should take a train that runs eighteen hours through blistering heat if a flight used to do it in two.

Y aquí hay otro factor climático que a veces se olvida.

And here there's another climate factor that's sometimes overlooked.

El calor.

Heat.

La India ya está experimentando olas de calor de una intensidad que hace cincuenta años era prácticamente inimaginable.

India is already experiencing heat waves of an intensity that fifty years ago was practically unimaginable.

Hay ciudades en el norte y en el centro del país donde la temperatura supera los 45 grados en verano.

There are cities in the north and center of the country where temperatures exceed 45 degrees Celsius in summer.

En esas condiciones, volar no es un lujo, es la única forma razonable de moverse a larga distancia.

In those conditions, flying isn't a luxury, it's the only reasonable way to travel long distances.

Climate change making air travel more necessary while also demanding that we reduce air travel.

That's a loop I genuinely hadn't thought through before, and it's...

it's a real bind.

Es uno de los problemas más difíciles de la política climática.

It's one of the hardest problems in climate policy.

Y lo que la crisis de las aerolíneas indias ilustra es que estamos tomando decisiones de infraestructura ahora mismo, en este momento, que van a determinar cómo viaja la humanidad durante los próximos cincuenta años.

And what the Indian airline crisis illustrates is that we're making infrastructure decisions right now, at this very moment, that will determine how humanity travels for the next fifty years.

Si la India construye aeropuertos y flotas aéreas basadas en queroseno, ese modelo va a ser muy difícil de cambiar después.

If India builds airports and fleets based on kerosene, that model will be very hard to change later.

Lock-in.

It's one of the most underappreciated concepts in energy economics.

The decisions you make today about infrastructure create dependencies that last for decades, because airports, planes, fuel supply chains, they're all built around a single fuel type.

Y por eso algunos expertos argumentan que la única solución real a largo plazo es una combinación de tres cosas: el SAF para los vuelos de larga distancia, el hidrógeno verde para los vuelos cortos una vez que la tecnología madure, y una reducción genuina de la demanda en los países ricos, que son históricamente los que más han volado.

And that's why some experts argue the only real long-term solution is a combination of three things: SAF for long-haul flights, green hydrogen for short routes once the technology matures, and a genuine reduction in demand in wealthy countries, which are historically the ones that have flown the most.

Green hydrogen for short routes.

That technology exists in early form.

There are test planes running on hydrogen right now, ZeroAvia out of the UK has done some serious work.

But the timeline between test plane and commercial fleet is measured in decades, not years.

Exacto.

Exactly.

Y mientras esperamos esas soluciones tecnológicas, el mundo sigue siendo profundamente vulnerable a lo que está pasando ahora: una guerra en el Oriente Medio que puede paralizar la aviación en el subcontinente indio.

And while we wait for those technological solutions, the world remains deeply vulnerable to what's happening now: a war in the Middle East that can paralyze aviation across the Indian subcontinent.

Eso no es un accidente del sistema.

That's not a glitch in the system.

Es el sistema funcionando exactamente como fue diseñado, y mostrando todas sus grietas.

That's the system working exactly as designed, and showing all its cracks.

What I keep coming back to is this: the airline industry has been asking for subsidies, regulatory relief, and bailout packages in every major crisis for fifty years.

Governments always oblige because aviation is treated as essential infrastructure.

But no government has ever said, fine, we'll bail you out, but the price is a binding commitment to decarbonize.

Casi.

Almost.

La Unión Europea intentó algo así durante el rescate de Air France en 2020, condicionando parte de la ayuda a la reducción de vuelos domésticos y a compromisos medioambientales.

The European Union tried something like that during the Air France bailout in 2020, conditioning part of the aid on reduced domestic flights and environmental commitments.

Fue imperfecto, pero fue un primer intento.

It was imperfect, but it was a first attempt.

El problema es que ningún país quiere ser el primero en cargar más costos a sus aerolíneas si los países vecinos no hacen lo mismo.

The problem is that no country wants to be the first to load more costs onto its airlines if neighboring countries don't do the same.

The classic collective action problem.

And it gets worse at a global scale because aviation is inherently international, which makes national regulation nearly useless.

You can clean up your own airport, but if the plane refuels in Dubai and flies to London, whose rules apply?

Existe un esquema llamado CORSIA, que es el sistema de compensación y reducción de carbono de la aviación internacional.

There's a scheme called CORSIA, the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation.

Fue creado por la ICAO, la organización internacional de aviación civil, en 2016.

It was created by ICAO, the International Civil Aviation Organization, in 2016.

Pero tiene muchas exenciones, los países en desarrollo están excluidos de las fases iniciales, y los críticos dicen que depende demasiado de compensaciones de carbono que en muchos casos no son reales.

But it has many exemptions, developing countries are excluded from the initial phases, and critics say it relies too heavily on carbon offsets that in many cases aren't real.

Carbon offsets.

I've been skeptical of those for years.

The idea that you can plant trees somewhere in the Amazon to cancel out a flight from Mumbai to London always struck me as accounting magic rather than physics.

Hay estudios que respaldan ese escepticismo.

There are studies that support that skepticism.

Una investigación importante de 2023 analizó cientos de proyectos de compensación de carbono certificados por una de las organizaciones más respetadas del sector, Verra, y encontró que la gran mayoría de los créditos no correspondían a reducciones de emisiones reales.

A major 2023 investigation looked at hundreds of carbon offset projects certified by one of the most respected organizations in the sector, Verra, and found that the vast majority of credits didn't correspond to real emissions reductions.

Era, en muchos casos, exactamente lo que dices: contabilidad creativa.

It was, in many cases, exactly what you say: creative accounting.

So here's where we land, I think.

The India story is simultaneously a geopolitical crisis, an economic crisis, and a slow-motion climate crisis.

And the three are not separable.

The reason this war in Iran can ground planes in Mumbai is the same reason the climate is changing: the world built its entire mobility system on a single point of failure.

Bien dicho.

Well put.

Y si esta crisis tiene algún valor, es que hace visible algo que normalmente permanece invisible.

And if this crisis has any value at all, it's that it makes visible something that normally stays invisible.

Cuando el precio del queroseno es estable y los vuelos baratos, nadie piensa en el sistema que hace posible ese billete de cien euros a París.

When kerosene prices are stable and flights are cheap, nobody thinks about the system that makes that hundred-euro ticket to Paris possible.

Cuando el sistema falla, de repente lo ves todo.

When the system fails, suddenly you see all of it.

One more thing I want to ask you about, actually.

You used a phrase earlier, "se puede hacer en menos de dos horas y media en tren." And what caught my ear was that "se puede" construction.

We use that a lot on this show and I've never really nailed when it sounds natural versus when it sounds like I'm translating from English.

Buena pregunta.

Good question.

El "se" en "se puede" es lo que llamamos el "se" impersonal.

The 'se' in 'se puede' is what we call the impersonal 'se.' There's no specific subject, it's not 'I can' or 'you can,' it's a general statement, like saying 'it's possible to do this.' You use it when talking about something anyone could do, not something a specific person does.

No hay un sujeto específico, no es "yo puedo" ni "tú puedes", es una afirmación general, como decir "es posible hacer esto".

Lo usas cuando hablas de algo que cualquier persona podría hacer, no de algo que hace alguien en concreto.

So it's close to the English 'you can' when 'you' doesn't mean a specific person.

Like, 'you can get from Paris to Lyon by train in two hours' where 'you' really means 'anyone.'

Exactamente.

Exactly.

"Se puede ir de París a Lyon en dos horas en tren." Nadie en particular, todos en general.

'Se puede ir de París a Lyon en dos horas en tren.' Nobody in particular, everyone in general.

También funciona con otros verbos: "se dice", "se come bien aquí", "se nota que eres americano por cómo pides el café."

It works with other verbs too: 'se dice,' 'se come bien aquí,' 'se nota que eres americano por cómo pides el café.'

"Se nota que eres americano." I'm going to pretend that last example was purely grammatical and not a comment on my coffee order.

Era puramente gramatical, Fletcher.

It was purely grammatical, Fletcher.

Completamente.

Completely.

No tenía nada que ver con que pidas un café con hielo a las nueve de la mañana.

Nothing to do with you ordering an iced coffee at nine in the morning.