Flights of Fancy

There is no doubt that the UK's 'traffic light' system for foreign air travel is a mess. Red, amber and green have been joined by 'amber with quarantine' and 'amber but about to turn red'. The designations of countries can also change, whilst people are on holiday. This has resulted in folk having to cut their holiday short and fly back (if they can get a flight). The statistical bases of the list is obscure. It cannot be based on the levels of Covid19 infections in locations. The UK has a higher incidence of the virus than some locations on its red list (requiring mandatory quarantine and testing in airport hotels). The scheme is also not clearly linked to levels of viral variants in any specified country. The apparently arbitrary nature of the scheme has also led to predictable (financially-mediated?) howls of rage from travel companies, airlines and airports. They talk of job losses and the need to get holiday travel 'mushrooming' again. The climate change emergency, of course, means that the last thing we need is a 'mushrooming' of air travel. The UK minister, who was appointed President of the COP26 Glasgow meeting, flew to 30 countries for face-to-face meetings in 7 months (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/06/cop26-president-alok-sharma-flew-to-30-countries-in-7-months). The minister's trips were undertaken winter 2020 to spring 2021. His trips involved at least 6 countries on the UK 'red list'. As a 'crown servant', however, he evaded quarantine. The UK government ought to have learned, by now, that this looks suspiciously like 'one rule for the masses and another rule for us'. Setting a good example is essential in the present circumstances. Generating massive carbon dioxide emissions on flights, when everyone else is being asked to cut down, looks bad. Evading quarantine, when folk have their travel plans wrecked (even if, a holiday, was a bad idea), compounds the offense. The government certainly needs to start seriously talking about reducing air travel in a fair and systematic way. They especially need to consider short haul flights. Take-off and landing are the times when maximal carbon dioxide emissions ('greenhouse gases'), are generated.