During this year’s United Nations General Assembly in New York, the aviation industry, led by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the Air Transport Action Group (ATAG), emphasized its continued commitment to reducing fuel emissions across the entire air transport sector. In part, the document presented at the event and co-signed by the Airports Council International, the Civil Air Navigation Services Organization, the International Air Transport Association, the International Coordinating Council for Aerospace Industries Associations and the International Business Aviation Council (IBAC) stated: “Air transport connects the world. It is a vital engine of global economic growth, supporting 58 million jobs and $2.4 trillion in gross domestic product. In order that all parts of the world are able to benefit from the rapid connectivity advantages of air transport, the sector has committed itself to a pathway of sustainable growth encompassing all areas of the commercial industry and governments working in partnership.”
While presenting the document, ICAO Council president Dr. Olumuyiwa Benard Aliu added, “Governments, through ICAO, are working with determination and in league with industry to mitigate aviation-related emissions and help humanity meet the wider and very challenging global targets now before us. Working cooperatively, our sector is taking proactive and concrete actions that will continue improving air transport fuel efficiency and stabilize the sector’s net carbon dioxide emissions from 2020, consistent with our historically strong record in this regard while permitting air transport to continue to bring citizens, societies and businesses together, promoting peace and prosperity wherever aircraft fly.”
Business Aviation On Board
Aviation operations represent approximately 2 percent of human CO2 emissions, and Aliu’s comments presumably were concerned largely with the commercial aviation sector, which is expected to continue its growth. Business aviation contributes just 2 percent of that 2 percent of total manmade aviation emissions related to climate change yet, according to IBAC director general Kurt Edwards, “We’re right there with everyone else who signed onto the air transport industry commitment to climate change.”
“I have met with a number of operators here and around the world who are willing to contribute and do their fair and reasonable share,” Edwards told AIN, while recalling the recent debacle surrounding the European Union’s Emissions Trading Scheme (EU-ETS), “but they are also extremely concerned about what took place in Europe, where truly their needs or operating model were not even considered. It was just a one-size-fits-all model that really has nothing to do with our world.”
The business aviation community’s core concern with the ETS lay in the excessive compliance requirements and toll it placed on smaller operations, a burden IBAC is working to head off in any future agreements. “Because business aviation is an easy target, we really got the short end of the straw there in the ETS deal, so we’re trying to make sure that does not happen with the global work that is being done,” Edwards noted. “We are participating in both the technical and the political processes to make sure that our needs are taken into account and I will admit that it’s not apparent how that’s going to happen at this point.”
The current ICAO “four pillar” plan, as described by Edwards, seeks an annual 2-percent improvement in fuel efficiency through 2020, and a medium-term target of industry-wide carbon-neutral growth from then on. The four legs of the platform consist of developing new and more efficient aircraft and sustainable alternate fuel sources, an area in which Edwards sees the most promise; voluntary deployment of operational improvements that reduce CO2 emissions; improving airspace infrastructure through initiatives such as NextGen and Sesar; and market-based measures such as fuel taxes and offset credits.
In its next assembly, slated for 2016, the Montreal-based United Nations agency could settle on its long-term goals, set out to 2050. “We continue to work with them and make sure that whatever ultimately is adopted allows for flexibility to meet the needs of large commercial air transport operators as well as smaller commercial and private business aviation operators,” Edwards said, adding that for business aviation, improvements made in the name of the environment could help the bottom line as well. “Any operator has an interest in flying in the most efficient manner possible, and that means that whether it’s for cost reasons or environmental reasons, [operators] want to fly in a manner that reduces their overall emissions to mitigate their impact on climate change,” said Edwards. “It’s all the same thing in the end, and we shouldn’t take away from that.”
