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Giulio Mattioli Profile picture
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13 Jun, 9 tweets, 4 min read
German Conservative PM candidate claimed yesterday that we should not tax flights because that would make them "a privilege for the few".

What he forgot to say is that: they already are.

➡️ 60%+ of Germans don't fly in a given year. Just 8% fly >3 times
[THREAD with FIGURES]
Poor German households spend a ridiculously low share of their income on flights ⬇️.

That's because mostly they don't fly.
The figures are from this brilliant report by @_wearepossible on inequalities in air travel in several countries around the world. static1.squarespace.com/static/5d30896…

Read it, it's pretty enlightening.
Also, if we take a step back & take a global perspective: oh boy is flying to Mallorca a privilege for the few.
Can we really afford to leave holidays alone, when tackling climate change? Not really, I'm afraid.

This study estimated that a staggering *62%* of the climate impacts of transport in Germany is for trips>100km, most of which is due to flights.
Link to the study doi.org/10.1016/j.envs… [THREAD ENDS]
PS: I almost forgot. This study was published a few days ago doi.org/10.17645/up.v6…

It finds that an increase in airfares + restricting air travel to trips that are longer than a certain threshold distance. would reduce *total CO2 emissions from transport* in Germany by 7.5%
PS2: making an instrumental appeal to social justice (even if it's unfounded / you're not really interested in it) is 1 of 12 discourses of climate delay that we identify in this paper. Comic by @leolinne
PS3: since tweeting this thread, I calculated some more figures

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More from @giulio_mattioli

Giulio Mattioli Profile picture
13 Jun
Debate is raging in Germany on how often low-income households fly to #Mallorca with low-cost airlines, and how bad any flight tax would affect them.

Let's have a look at the data, shall we? [THREAD]
Just 8% of overnight trips by households with "very low" income is by air (11% for "low" income). It's 17% in the richest group.

Note that rail follows the opposite pattern: 36% among the poorest, 17% among the richest.
KEEP IN MIND THOUGH: these are figures where 100% is the total of overnight trips made by each income group.

And richer people make many more overnight trips over a period of 3 months (2.8 on average) as compared to the poor (0.7-0.9)
Read 5 tweets
Giulio Mattioli Profile picture
13 Jun
German PM candidate #Laschet stated today that he wants incentives & subsidies for home ownership because "even low-income household must be able to afford a little house".

Now *that* would be quite a radical trend break for Germany (THREAD)
spiegel.de/politik/deutsc…
Germany has *the* lowest share of home-ownership of all EU countries ec.europa.eu/eurostat/cache…
Germany also has one of the lowest shares of households living in houses - 56%+ live in flats.
Read 4 tweets
Giulio Mattioli Profile picture
11 Jun
I have never seen this sort of negative electoral campaigning with paid private online ads on the websites of British or Italian or French newspapers.

I guess because it's forbidden by law? Is Germany different here? Honest questions
I mean wouldn't be ironic if the country that is currently having a breakdown about "too many bans" was unique in having... not banned this
So I looked it up and, in Italy, paid electoral ads have been banned since 1999. Perks of the Berlusconi scare I suppose? repubblica.it/online/fatti/c…
Read 5 tweets
Giulio Mattioli Profile picture
11 Jun
We're at that stage of the German electoral campaign when neoliberal think-thanks depict the Green candidate as Moses carrying stone tablets with '10 bans'.

The first 2? "You are not allowed to drive a car & fly"

3+ more months to go until the election... 😱
Thread by investigative journalist here suggesting that the think-thank in question is funded by... the automotive industry
BTW, this is how left-leaning highbrow weekly Die Zeit's homepage looks right now 😱
Read 4 tweets
Giulio Mattioli Profile picture
10 Jun
Very interesting report by @InfluenceMap: "the aviation sector has emerged as one of the strongest opponents of climate policy in Europe"
influencemap.org/report/Aviatio…
Key passage Image
Several discourses of climate delay are used Image
Read 5 tweets
Giulio Mattioli Profile picture
17 May
Germany is discussing possible bans & taxes on (short) flights & so conservative daily Welt is claiming that "for the poor, the costs of climate change mitigation are more threatening than climate change".

Which means it's *debunking thread time again*
If you want to argue that climate policies are particularly bad for the poor, there are plenty of examples where this claim is more or less plausible.

But you really, really don't want to pick air travel as it's the best *counterexample*. See thread.
BTW that thread is from more than 2 years ago, and since then the evidence has piled up on the extreme inequalities in air travel.

Such as this brilliant report (static1.squarespace.com/static/5d30896…)

More than 60% of German don't fly in a given year. Just 8% fly more than 3 times.
Read 9 tweets

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