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鈥淵ou鈥檙e always the hardest to say goodbye to,鈥� my mom whispered as we hugged, paces away from the security entrance at the Seattle airport. I squeezed her tight, my arms warm on her back, my head angled on her shoulder. We鈥檝e been here dozens of times, and it never gets easier.

I didn鈥檛 expect to sign up for a decade-long identity crisis when I chose to go to university in Scotland 15 years ago. I didn鈥檛 know I wouldn鈥檛 feel at home anywhere, always missing my family and my friends on different sides of the globe, feeling that I should be somewhere else. I often wonder if I would still choose to go to university 4,000 miles away from home if I鈥檇 truly understood the environmental impact as an 18-year-old.

That鈥檚 because flying is basically the fastest way you can consume carbon as an individual. The relatively short 2 hour and 20 minute flight from London to Rome the manufacture of a low-cost HP Chromebook鈥攕omething I would typically use for years, not two hours. It鈥檚 also equivalent to the carbon used in growing and transporting nearly 3,000 bananas to my home in the U.K. But it鈥檚 physically impossible for me to eat that many bananas in two hours; it would take me closer to two decades.

As an assistant professor of sustainable design, I have been ashamed to be researching and teaching on sustainable lifestyles while getting on airplanes every year, both for work and to see family in the U.S. Just one of my round-trip flights to Seattle uses 鈥�14 times the carbon of the example above. And while my lectures present research on ways to lower an individual鈥檚 carbon, , I don鈥檛 want pro-environmental actions to come from a place of shame.

Flying is not something everyone does.

My own feelings have changed as I鈥檝e grown older and have come to better understand the reasons we fly. A colleague tells me he could take the train, but he flies instead so his wife is not the sole carer for their two kids the whole week. A friend flies to be at a funeral and again to celebrate the life of their lost loved one who wanted their ashes spread in Spain. We fly for love and family. For connection and relaxation. Out of duty. In pursuit of personal development and career advances.

I am compassionate about how sticky the practice of flying is, while at the same time recognizing that this is a dilemma reserved for high-income individuals. I emphasize systemic solutions in my work, because acting as an individual and choosing to fly less does not address the social injustice that underlies flying in the first place.

Flying is not something everyone does. Only 11% of the world population flew in 2018, the last year this was calculated. Just 1% of the global population was responsible for more than half of aviation emissions in that year. This is why flying, like environmental impact broadly, is an equality issue.

Thanks to Oxfam鈥檚 now famous (at least in my world) report on , we know that the richest 10% of the population is responsible for 50% of global lifestyle carbon emissions. (To be included in that richest 10% means being鈥攐r $44,400 or 拢32,900鈥攁nnually.)

When it comes to flying, we see this inequality reproduced. Milena Buchs, a professor of sustainable welfare, and Giulio Mattioli, a transport researcher, analyzed U.K. data from 2022 and found that the top 10% of emitters were responsible for 61% of flight emissions overall, and for 83.7% of emissions from .

This is why Buchs and Mattioli propose frequent flyer levies, calling them 鈥�.鈥� Taxation on frequent flyers only impacts the small percentage of people who fly more than once per year, and gets these polluters paying for their higher impact. Then, ideally, these funds are diverted to public transportation that proportionately benefits the majority of the population that doesn鈥檛 fly. Unlike many carbon taxes that burden lower-income people most, frequent flyer levies are progressive.

Frequent flyer levies, in contrast, burden the rich more as a proportion of income, however applied.

Poorer people generally have lower emissions (read that Oxfam report; this is well understood), yet hit them hardest. If the price of gas goes up, for example, the hope is that people will choose to drive less. But a well-off family鈥檚 decision whether to take a planned family road trip is hardly impacted by the price of gas, while those with fewer financial resources are more likely to struggle to pay for the gas necessary to commute to work or heat their home. This unequal burden was behind the in France. Regressive carbon policies also show up in schemes to support buying electric cars or home insulation, which people on lower incomes or in rentals are less able to afford.

Frequent flyer levies, in contrast, burden the rich more as a proportion of income, however applied. Everyone would get an exemption on the first round-trip flight a year, and then subsequent flights would be taxed at an increasing rate or according to the distance traveled. Because they are progressive, these proposed levies have received widespread public approval. In 2021, a survey about the best way to meet government carbon targets found that .

We are a species that values equality. We want people to be treated fairly. And it鈥檚 not fair that a rich minority of the global population is contributing more to the processes increasing heat waves, droughts, fires, and floods. Nor is it fair that the resulting suffering, starvation, and destruction of homes, livelihoods, and families that this climate chaos causes mainly impacts people who contribute very little. Frequent flyer levies make sense because they target reduction at one of the highest-environmental-impact activities in a fair way. 

No government has yet created a frequent flyer levy, so there is no exemplar of how such a scheme would be managed. Still, some of the mechanics can be gleaned from the first model proposed by the New Economics Foundation in 2014. Taking the U.K. as its case study, it suggested charging an annual rate based on income. Those who do fly would for those in the richest 20%.

But individual action and government policy are not the only avenues for interventions to fly less. We can also reflect on how we can use our professional or community roles to bring about change.

Instead of waiting for governments to use taxes to invest in high-speed, reliable, and affordable public transportation, an internal accounting could be created within organizations to support slower travel. For example, if a team or individual flies more often, on top of the cost of the tickets. These funds could then be used to foot the bill for an employee taking a train or ferry that requires additional hotel or child care costs.

Another way to use your influence to drive system change could be requesting additional paid 鈥渏ourney days鈥� from your employer to support the time for getting to your destination without flying. , and, at the very least, it signals awareness of structural norms that affect individuals鈥� choices to live within planetary boundaries. Because it鈥檚 not all on an individual to 鈥渃hoose鈥� to take a train, bus, or bike when their public transit, local infrastructure, or limited vacation days constrain their ways of getting around.

At the community level, citizens and scientists from Christchurch to London to Oakland are blocking private airports to demand regulations that make the polluter pay. This 鈥溾�� campaign is another way to raise awareness for frequent flyer levies.

For many of us living in high-income countries, flying has become normal in the past few decades. But it鈥檚 time we started to imagine new ways to meet our desires for love, leisure, and career. For example, the pandemic has normalized the practice of giving presentations and participating in events remotely.

So, too, with my family connections. I now have virtual book clubs with my parents. I share compost conquests and delights of my garden harvest via vlogs. Yes, I love feeling close to my mom, but I can do that whether I鈥檓 physically present or not. And if we want to continue to have a world in which we can enjoy our time together, I鈥檝e decided it means flying less often. And it means supporting efforts to make the carbon cost of flying more equitable.