The climate stickers caused so many tons of CO2

George Nopper and John Hillig

Glue yourself to streets and block traffic, throw canned soup at works of art. These are the recipes with which some activists want to save the world. On Thursday, the group “Last Generation” was given access to the grounds of Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER). Activists attached themselves to the runway with super glue. The result: air traffic was paralyzed for two hours.

The “last generation” demonstrated against the aviation industry and its climate-damaging CO_2-Exit. What the activists actually did was increase emissions: According to the airport, several planned landings had to be diverted to other airports, generating additional CO2₂ was released.

15 flights covered longer distances

One of the affected flights is LX980 from Zurich to Berlin. The Airbus A220-300 was diverted to Dresden. Other flights made an unscheduled stopover in Leipzig. The airport there is about the same distance from Berlin as it is from Dresden. A total of 15 flights were affected by the diversions.

If you do not take into account the laps the planes had to make in Berlin while they waited in vain for permission to land, the Myclimate calculator can be used to find out approximately how many tons of CO₂ were also released when the planes were diverted from Berlin to Dresden or Leipzig and flew back to Berlin after the outage was over.

Additional emissions of at least 420 tons

A Swiss Airbus A220-300 has 145 seats. For a flight from Berlin to Dresden and back, the machine emits more than 28 tons of CO when almost fully occupied (140 seats).₂ free. Extrapolated to 15 flights, the extra emissions weigh at least 420 tons.

After the protest, the police confiscated several climate stickers. You will be reported for dangerous air traffic disruption, trespassing and property damage.

Could such an action soon also cause flight chaos in Switzerland? In principle, you can never rule out anything, Zurich Airport said when asked. “We keep a close eye on such actions,” said spokeswoman Jasmin Bodmer-Breu. “Security is always the top priority at Zurich Airport, which is why regular security checks are carried out at our facilities.” When asked, Swiss explained that the incident was being monitored in Berlin. No further comments on the matter were made.