Every ash cloud has a silver lining

Most of those stranded on foreign shores – including my colleague David Nash, whose keynote presentation at a symposium in Beijing seemed like a good idea at the time – will fail to appreciate the ash cloud’s silver lining.

It’s equally hard to see how British businesses will benefit or how those whose products rely on fast delivery to market, such as the flower growers in Kenya, will appreciate the bright side of the continuing ban on flights to and from the UK.

According to Independent newspaper – using Reuters copy – though, there are ten silver linings to the cloud of volcanic ash currently hovering over northern Europe. These include lower risk of stroke, which apparently is heightened by aircraft noise, and saving 1.3 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions; equivalent to the annual emissions of 50 of the world’s poorest countries.

Slightly different estimates of the carbon emissions saved are available here, but you get the picture.

So why is a climate change researcher such as me not rejoicing? Because aside from clearing the skies of west London (and allowing the people of Hounslow to return to their back gardens for what, by coincidence, was a scorcher of a weekend), the ash cloud’s temporary excoriation of all aircraft and their vapour trails from our skies brings mostly economic pain and major inconvenience. And from an environmental perspective, there has been no structural change. Once the ash cloud has gone, it will be business as usual; the emissions saved utterly trivial.

What, on the other hand, the continued eruption of the world’s most unpronounceable volcano shows with great clarity is that whether we like it or not, our economy and the way we live our lives is heavily reliant on aviation. Ground planes – for whatever reason – and at least some of the machinery of globalisation grinds to a halt.

Is there an electoral silver lining? Certainly the conjuring of Dunkirk spirit is never a bad thing (it worked for Thatcher in 1983), although there is a danger that politicians merely look impotent at the hand of nature and, as such, it’s equally hard to see how the non-incumbents can make political capital out of the ashes.

If anything, the volcanic ash has exposed – once again – how vulnerable the current model of globalisation is and how trying to deal with emissions from aviation, whose growth will be a major problem for future governments, simply by curbing flying is a political non-starter.

When the ash cloud lifts and planes take to the air again, we need politicians to think about how we can accelerate technological innovation to reduce emissions from aircraft permanently, how the noise, misery and health impacts that jet aircraft bring to those grounded under their flight paths is reduced, how to replace flying where possible with hi-tech alternatives and how gradually we can shift to a more sustainable model of global trade.

Andrew Pendleton