Are We There Yet? No, Really, Mom, Are We There Yet?: The Digest’s 2019 Multi-Slide Guide to the Latest SAF News from Airlines for America

by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) What we need right now is CORSIA and “a significant infusion of sustainable aviation fuels,” according to Nancy Young, VP of Environment for Airlines for America. During her presentation at ABLC NEXT in San Francisco, Young noted that while aviation has a strong climate change record, it’s not yet achieved all their goals. She offered the latest info. on ICAO projections for international aviation, what airlines need to deploy Sustainable Aviation Fuels, the latest policy progress on supporting commercialization, current carrier supply and deployment agreements, and more. READ MORE

Excerpt from Politico's Morning Energy: FLIGHT SCHOOL: President Donald Trump's effort to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement is well documented. But the Paris deal isn't the only international effort to cut emissions that is being undermined by a lack of U.S. leadership.

Climate experts and activists say the absence of U.S. leadership in the negotiations at the U.N.'s International Civil Aviation Organization has emboldened countries like China to weaken plans to curb the emissions from their fast-growing fleets of planes, Pro's Zack Colman reports this morning.

There are few green alternatives available to replace oil-based jet fuel for air travel, so international climate change efforts have focused on making planes more efficient and offsetting their pollution under a program called the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation, Zack reports. The program was established after discussions between President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jingping, and has garnered support from dozens of countries.

The Trump administration has participated in the ICAO conversations and officially supports CORSIA, but the Federal Aviation Administration has conditioned CORSIA implementation on "a high level of participation by other countries, particularly by countries with significant aviation activity." And officials with knowledge of the process privately say that the Trump administration has squandered the climate change leverage that the U.S. had won over China under the Obama administration, Zack reports.

"The CORSIA deal was made at the political level, leveraging favorable conditions, such as the U.S.-China climate cooperation, against industrial reluctance," said Shuo Li, a climate campaigner with Greenpeace in China. "Many of these favorable conditions do not exist now, and the result of that is playing out in ICAO." READ MORE