Aviation Industry Looks to ICAO for Leadership on Delivering a Global Long-Term Goal to Reduce Emissions

by Christopher Surgenor (GreenAir Online) Counterintuitively, the global pandemic has catalysed the aviation sector’s approach in a very positive way to climate action despite going through the worst period in aviation history, said Haldane Dodd, the incoming Executive Director of the cross-industry Air Transport Action Group at its 2021 Global Sustainable Aviation Forum. Momentum had gathered pace over the past 18 months with real climate policy developments and a major push had taken place on sustainable aviation fuels (SAF), he said, citing that since the start of Covid-19, over 6.3 billion litres of new SAF purchasing commitments had been made by airlines globally, around the same amount committed across the previous six years. However, Dodd acknowledged the decarbonisation transition will not be easy. It needed, he said, clear direction “from the top” and called for the “overdue” long-term climate goal to be adopted by States at next year’s ICAO Assembly. In an opening address, ICAO Council President Salvatore Sciacchitano said the post-Covid outcome should not be a reversion to business as usual and bold sustainability commitments to building back better and much stronger “must now be the order of the day.” READ MORE

Excerpt from GreenAir Online: A coalition of global aviation industry associations, representing airports, air traffic management and makers of aircraft and engines, have reinforced the new adoption by IATA’s member airlines of a long-term climate goal of net zero carbon emissions by 2050. A declaration released by the cross-industry Air Transport Action Group (ATAG) commits global civil aviation operations to achieving the same goal through accelerated efficiency measures, energy transition and innovation across the aviation sector, and in partnership with governments around the world. At its Annual General Meeting in Boston on October 4, IATA passed a resolution to adopt the net zero goal that updates the previous less ambitious long-term goal agreed industry-wide in 2009. To coincide with the new goal, ATAG has released new analysis that it says outlines credible paths for the air transport sector to reach its decarbonisation target, reports Mark Pilling. READ MORE