As the Australian summer gets under way, many of us are planning holidays.
When it comes to limiting emissions associated with travel, a staycation or local holiday – by train, bus or car – remains the lowest-impact option. But overseas travel by Australians has been increasing in recent decades, with Indonesia, New Zealand, Japan, the United States and China among the top destinations, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
Globally, tourism makes up about 9% of global greenhouse gas emissions, with Australians among the top 20 countries in terms of our tourism carbon footprint.
While it’s impossible to escape the emissions associated with flying, sustainability remains important for most travellers, and some travel methods are more carbon intensive than others.
So how do we minimise our impact while fulfilling our human desire to see the world, and how close are we to carbon-free travel?
The way you fly matters
Aviation accounts for about 2.5% of global CO2 emissions, but the climate impact is effectively double due to an added warming effect, called radiative forcing, resulting from emissions at high altitudes.
Aviation emissions are also growing exponentially – with a 3.5% increase each year from the travel industry between 2009 and 2019, according to a 2024 study published in Nature Communications.
Takeoff and landing are the most carbon intensive parts of flying, so the more directly you can fly, the smaller your overall impact will be. It’s also worth researching which airlines offer the most carbon-friendly flights, which the German climate protection group Atmosfair monitors and ranks in its annual reports.
Brett Mitchell, Intrepid Travel’s managing director for Australia and New Zealand, says the most effective way for travellers to reduce their carbon footprint is by choosing destinations closer to home, which reduces the carbon intensity of long-haul flights and replacing flights with land-based alternatives where possible.
“Travellers can also select lower‑impact itineraries that prioritise sustainable transport options such as walking, cycling or rail … In addition, bringing reusable water bottles, bags and utensils helps minimise single‑use plastics throughout the journey,” he says.
Do carbon offsets actually work?
The most common way passengers try to minimise their emissions is through carbon offsets, which airlines such as Qantas offer passengers for as cheaply as $2 on a Sydney to Melbourne flight – but do they actually work?
Not according to Prof Andrew Macintosh, the former head of the Australian government’s Emissions Reduction Assurance Committee, who has described carbon offsets as “largely a sham” that hurt the environment.
“Offsets make you feel like you’re doing something for the climate but are basically a con,” says Rod Campbell, research director at the Australia Institute. Campbell points to Australia Institute research that showed 23 examples of carbon-offset schemes failing to deliver their promised environmental outcomes.
He says the whole notion of offsets is flawed and a better alternative was for people to focus on directly reducing their emissions, either through travel choices or in other aspects of their lives.
If you can’t avoid flying – to visit family overseas, for example – Campbell suggests supporting companies “that are doing real decarbonisation” rather than relying on offsets. “It can take a bit of research, but lots of companies have been moving away from the most flawed schemes and that deserves support.”
Embracing eco-tourism
On a recent trip to Europe from Melbourne to visit my partner’s family, I caught direct flights through China to Athens, and then travelled through Greece, Bulgaria and Romania by boat, train, bus and rental car.
I drove to a small organic homestay near the village of Răchițele, Romania, which welcomes guests and volunteer workers from all over the world. The volunteers can work on the farm and interact with the local community, including assisting with organic vegetable growing and cheesemaking.
Zsuzsi Máthé, who runs the farmstay with her partner, says their vision is to bring visitors one step closer to nature, while helping to grow local natural food. “True eco-tourism builds responsibly, eats locally and respects deeply, creating meaningful experiences that honour both nature and the communities that care for it,” Máthé says.
From my experience, it can also provide the most nourishing travel experiences possible, stepping out of the hustle of hotel bookings and providing meaningful human connection and nature immersion.
The future of travel
The International Energy Agency’s net zero by 2050 scenarios anticipate rail will replace a significant share of long-distance road and regional air transport. Some countries, like France, have already banned flights on specific routes where a fast rail service is available.
While we’re not there yet, there’s a strong international push towards carbon-free flying. Denmark has pledged to have all domestic flights fossil fuel-free by 2030, Finland by 2035, Iceland by 2040 and Germany by 2045.
One Brisbane-based company is hedging its bets on hydrogen-propelled electric flights, noting that Australia has a unique edge because of the amount of space and sun available to produce and export hydrogen using solar.
Steffen Geries, chief operating officer of Stralis Aircraft, says the electrification of air travel is already happening, similarly to what has happened with cars. However, the key challenge to overcome is that unlike cars, flights are extremely weight sensitive and require an extraordinary amount of propulsion energy and power.
The company is about to fly six-seater hydrogen-electric test flights, which it hopes to extend to 15-seater planes capable of travelling up to 800km by 2030. He says electric air travel will favour more direct, shorter travel routes. “We want to start with Brisbane to Gladstone flights, but we’d hope to improve the technology so we can take more passengers at longer distances of up to 3000km by the mid 2030s.
“We are still at the crawl stage now before we start to walk, run or fly.”
