Is green air travel really green?

In the fight against climate change, experts in climate and carbon dioxide emissions have identified industries that pollute more than others. Among these, transportation accounts for the lion's share. Air traffic, in particular, is all the more singled out for criticism because it is massive and far less essential to people than, say, their cars. As a result, more and more people are feeling guilty about traveling, and prefer to take other means of transport, or simply stop racing around the world. Solutions that don't help the aviation sector.

Companies such as Air France, SwissAir and others are offering to "offset their carbon footprint". Travellers pay extra for programs that are supposed to offset part of their travel emissions. Some, like Lufthansa, even offer totally carbon-neutral travel. But are the promises kept?

This Citizen Facts program tries to get to the bottom of these programs, and we have to admit that they are much more often about "greenwashing", i.e. trying to appear eco-responsible, than real effective gestures to improve things.

Whether it's the reforestation of a plot of land in France or ecological projects around the world, compensation estimates are routinely inflated and unrepresentative of what science knows. All the more so since we now know that aircraft contrails contribute to atmospheric pollutants and are virtually never taken into account by the various carbon dioxide calculators.

Running time: 34min33