Could hydrogen power turn air travel green?

Have you been scanning airline websites for exotic destinations to which your double-jabbed status might allow you to slip away in August? I certainly have, but I’ve ruled out the parts of Canada and the United States that are stricken by record-breaking heatwaves and forest fires — and I’m wondering what impact such extreme climate events will have on the aviation industry as it struggles back to life after the pandemic. Having survived a year of near-total shutdown, I suspect it will now face an onslaught of green rhetoric to which governments — positioning for November’s COP26 climate conference in Glasgow — will be forced to respond.

A recent Financial Times headline, ‘Brussels targets aviation fuel tax in drive to cut carbon emissions’, was one indicator. In the UK, Greenpeace has been calling for a ‘frequent flyer tax’ — a graduated version of the existing Air Passenger Duty, rising according to the number of flights taken per year — to reflect the fact that 15 per cent of the population take 70 per cent of international flights.