CO2 emissions are going to happen, we need to reduce them in a meaningful way. We do that by looking at the breakdown of emissions.
The biggest sector is enery use in the industry (24%), next is buildings, mostly heating (17.5), then transport (16%). Most of the transport emissions is road transport (cars and trucks) and air travel is only 2% of the overall emissions.
And again, air travel is mostly frequent travelers who have no intention to change their habit. That means that as an occasional air traveler, if it makes you happy to visit a faraway country every few years, you should definitely not feel bad about it. Because even if all occasional travelers were to stop flying, it wouldn't make any significant difference.
The biggest change we can make to reduce air emissions is replacing short flights with high-speed rail. There are 400 flights a day between DC and NYC. It should be zero.
The biggest sector is enery use in the industry (24%), next is buildings, mostly heating (17.5), then transport (16%). Most of the transport emissions is road transport (cars and trucks) and air travel is only 2% of the overall emissions.
https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-sector
And again, air travel is mostly frequent travelers who have no intention to change their habit. That means that as an occasional air traveler, if it makes you happy to visit a faraway country every few years, you should definitely not feel bad about it. Because even if all occasional travelers were to stop flying, it wouldn't make any significant difference.