Flygskam / Flight shame

Recognising the size of the emissions generated from flying, and realising the severity and acuteness of the climate crisis is a prerequisite for the existence of flight shame. A round-trip from Stockholm to Thailand creates a climate impact corresponding to two tons of carbon dioxide. In 2023, the average emission of a citizen in Sweden is around eight tons per person per year. We have to reach four tons by 2030 to meet the climate goals that have been set. If we are to take climate justice into account, we must reduce this amount even more. This means that a couple of flights easily eats up major parts of one person's emissions quota. Another condition for flight shame to be relevant is of course that people fly. This might seem self-evident, but many see flying as a normal or necessary part of their lifestyle, unaware that only a small percentage of the world's population fly. Such an awareness does, however, seem to have developed in Sweden in the last few years.

Flight shame can work because we either feel that our conscience tells us it is wrong to fly, or because our social group – people that we count as important in our lives – dislike that we continue to fly. How and when these aspects are connected is difficult to say. Our conscience can object when we realise that our actions have negative consequences for others, like our children or other people far away. Or, when we simply feel that flying is unjust. This can happen as a result of increased knowledge, when we shift our comparison, or gain tacit experience of climate change in the form of, for example, wildfires or flooding. But we can also feel obliged to stop, or cut down, if we fear that those we care about will object and perhaps even reject us.

In the past, Swedish flying has increased steadily by a few percent per year, with temporary exceptions for events such as September 11 and the financial crisis in 2008. But when the aviation debate started in 2018, the increase levelled off and in 2019 there was a real decrease of just over 4 % for the first time. During the pandemic flying decreased dramatically. Now it has increased again, but Swedes' flying habits are still 34 % lower than when they were at their peak in 2018. It is difficult to know how our changed flying habits have been affected by altered norms around flying or by the pandemic (globally, flying is not back to previous levels), but it is also not unlikely that these factors worked in unison: It was possible, it turned out, to live without holiday trips to Tenerife or Southeast Asia. Such an experience can make it easier to decide to stop flying. That attitudes change, however, can be seen in recurring surveys carried out by the Environmental Protection Agency in Sweden. To the question "Have you done anything in your everyday life to reduce your climate impact in the last two years when it comes to your choice of holiday travel?", the percentage of the Swedish population who answered "yes" increased from 37 per cent in 2015 to 62 per cent in 2021 (The public on the climate report from 2021 (In Swedish): Allmänheten om klimatet 2021).

In discussions on sustainability, there is an idea that moral arguments should not be used, partly because it is unfair to demand that individuals take responsibility for something that is a systemic problem, and partly because it is believed that it does not work, and perhaps even fosters feelings of resistance. Instead, the focus has been on making it easy or tempting to do “the right thing”. The problem is that nudging, as it is called, seems to work poorly on lifestyle changes that involve the loss of something you value.