France announces an "eco-tax" of up to € 18 on airline tickets for all flights departing from the country

France will introduce an "eco-tax" of up to € 18 on airline tickets for all flights departing from the country, the government announced.

"We decided to set up an eco-tax on all flights from France," said Minister of Transport, Elisabeth Borne, at a press conference Tuesday.

She added that the tax, which should bring in about 180 million euros a year from 2020, would finance daily transport in France.

The new tax will go from € 1.50 for short-haul flights and up to € 18 for long-haul business clbad trips.

This decision comes as the global climate emergency intensifies, disproportionately caused by the very small percentage of people using aircraft for their transport.

Only about 5% of the world's population takes flights, but it is estimated that air travel accounts for 2% of the planet's total carbon emissions.

But a new study suggests that the global effects of flight could be much more damaging to the climate than previously thought.

The study found that the tracks left by aircraft in the sky were much more damaging to the climate than any carbon dioxide emitted by their engines.

The tracks – called contrails – drag in the sky in the form of ice clouds and trap the heat in the atmosphere of the Earth.

This is an unrecognized source of global warming related to air travel, and researchers from the Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IAP) in Germany said that the problem would triple in size. here 2050.