The Neoliberal Initiative of the Aviation Industry to Fight the Climate Crisis: Greenwashing

Year 2022, Volume: 9 Issue: 3, 178 - 186, 08.09.2022

Selçuk Gürçam

https://doi.org/10.30897/ijegeo.1083921

Cited By: 7

Abstract

The global climate crisis deepening rapidly and turning into a severe security problem requires a global struggle. In this regard, the United Nations has initiated comprehensive negotiations for a long time, but the process has not achieved the desired level of success. Behind this failure lies neoliberalism and its institutions that dominate the global economic system. The aviation sector with rapid growth potential grows and develops around the aggressive strategies of neoliberalism. The developments in the aviation sector naturally affect the climate negatively at the same rate. In this context, the aviation industry adopting the policy of pretending to be environmentalist has ignored or covered up the environmental impacts to escape the pressure of the climate crisis and continued to grow around the deregulation principle of neoliberalism. This situation, called greenwashing, has been well adopted by the aviation industry. The current study deals with the greenwashing application, a strategical approach that the aviation industry has implemented against other environmental problems, especially the climate crisis. The study has revealed that the innovative projects of the aviation industry, such as electric airplanes, hydrogen-powered airplanes, biofuel studies, high-efficiency, etc., are highly nonfunctional. In conclusion, the study has emphasized that the aviation industry is not as innocent as pretended; their attempts to hide the sector-based pollution effects are unrealistic, and the sector-related climate crisis continues to increase.

Keywords

Climate Crisis, Aviation Industry, United Nations, International Conventions., Greenwashing, Neoliberalism

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