Only one in ten flight passengers are willing to change the number of times they fly despite three-quarters accepting that flying contributes to climate change, according to new research.

The findings, published on TravelMole.com, involved surveying 487 passengers at Manchester airport - over half of whom said they did not know that carbon offsetting was possible.

Almost eight out of ten flight passengers had heard of offsetting schemes, but under 50 percent knew that they could be used to reduce the environmental impacts of their flight.

Commenting on the findings, Dr Paul Hooper, the scientist who led the research from Manchester Metropolitan University's Centre for Air Transport and the Environment, told the website that confusion surrounded the "existence, purpose and methods" of carbon offsetting.

"Given that offset schemes are currently voluntary, much more needs to be done to raise awareness of the existence and benefits of such schemes if we want to see greater uptake by passengers," he said.

People can buy carbon offsets for the greenhouse gases they cannot avoid emitting. They enable people to take responsibility for their carbon emissions by paying someone to reduce CO2 in the atmosphere on their behalf.