Transport Ministers Call for Accelerated EU-Wide Deployment and Mandates for Sustainable Aviation Fuels

(GreenAir Online) Eight European transport ministers have called for a harmonised, long-term strategy to decarbonising the air transport sector to include ramping up the production and supply of sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) through an EU-wide blending mandate. Hosting a high-level virtual conference, the Dutch Minister of Infrastructure and Water Management, Cora van Nieuwenhuizen, said there was a clear goal for aviation to achieve zero-carbon emissions, and the innovation of SAF, in particular synthetic kerosene, would play a crucial role. She said the Dutch ambition was fuel from departing flights would be made up of 14% SAF by 2030 and used the event to showcase a recent flight by KLM from Amsterdam that used 500 litres of synthetic jet fuel produced by Shell from CO2, water and renewable energy, an industry first. EU Transport Commissioner Adina Vălean said synthetic fuels, including hydrogen, would become one of the most important routes to the sector’s decarbonisation and the forthcoming launch of the RefuelEU Aviation initiative would establish a regulatory framework at the EU level that sent a strong policy signal to producers and investors.

European Executive Vice President Frans Timmermans, who has responsibility for the European Green Deal and Climate Action, said aviation presented a particular challenge due a huge increase in carbon emissions over the past decade, which needed to be tackled.

He called for European investment support of new technologies that would enable lower-cost production of sustainable fuels, including synthetic kerosene and clean hydrogen.

“What instruments do we have to influence this?” he said. “From my perspective, the EU ETS is the best system. It puts a price on carbon and allows us to generate revenue that can be used to be invested to create sustainable transport. Talking to my counterparts in America and China, forms of ETS are going to be cornerstones of their approach to decarbonising their economies as well. At the moment, it’s a piecemeal approach but if we do it at scale then we create a level playing field and then the risk of putting the European airline industry at a disadvantage diminishes.

“As well as carbon pricing and RefuelEU Aviation, we will have to look at how we integrate other transport systems into a sustainable solution.

She (Vălean) said sustainable fuels had a major role to play but the estimated share of SAF in the EU today was only around 0.05% of total jet fuel consumption.

“We need to scale up production capacity and make them widely available on the market,” she said. “This will require both cooperation and a sustainable policy framework, and, of course, an acceptable business case. In terms of cooperation, we plan to involve every interested party – airlines, producers, researchers, airports, public authorities, civil society and others – to establish a renewable and low-carbon value alliance. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. We need to know with precision, which are our weakest links and create the right conditions to strengthen the entire chain.”

Despite the promise of PtL fuels, he (Andreas Scheuer, Germany’s transport minister) conceded, there was no business case as yet due to high production costs, a lack of supply and demand, and current limitations of renewable electricity supplies. To support market development, he said Germany had set up a funding regime that would provide €1.5 billion ($1.8bn) over the next four years, with a special allocation for aviation PtL fuels. This would be complemented, subject to the recovery of the aviation sector from the crisis, by a national blending quota of 0.5% PtL starting from 2026, increasing up to 2% by 2030, based on sales of jet kerosene in Germany.

To send a signal to the market, he (French transport minister Jean-Baptiste Djebbari) suggested a European mandatory target of 5% SAF by 2030, with obligations that feedstocks are produced in the EU and came with high standards of sustainability.

“The purpose of opting for a reduction obligation is that compared with a blending obligation, it favours fuels with lower lifecycle emissions,” he (Sweden’s Minister of Infrastructure, Tomas Eneroth) said, adding that Sweden would welcome a revision of the EU energy taxation directive to allow for Member States to tax fossil jet fuel used in international aviation.

Timo Harakka, Minister of Transport for Finland, said the EU had to drive ambitious climate goals at a global level. “The next ICAO Assembly in 2022 will show whether the aviation community is ready for concrete measures. It will no doubt be challenging to agree on a common goal and necessary measures. However, there is no time to postpone the inevitable. Whether the measures are national, EU-wide or global, sustainable aviation fuels are at the very centre of them. READ MORE includes VIDEO