PARIS • The aviation sector is facing a great dilemma: How can it fulfil its ambition of doubling passenger numbers while meeting its goal of reducing its massive greenhouse gas emissions?
Slashing pollution from the industry is among the major challenges the world faces as leaders meet next month for a key climate summit in Britain.
How bad is it? Airlines transported 4.5 billion passengers in 2019, belching out in the process 900 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, equivalent to 2 per cent of total global emissions.
Passenger numbers are projected to double by 2050, meaning a parallel doubling of CO2 if no action is taken. While the sector has sought to increase carbon efficiency, it has increasingly faced pressure from environmentalists and social movements.
Between 2009 and 2019, carriers improved their energy efficiency by 21.4 per cent, according to the International Air Transport Association (Iata). But that was not enough to prevent the sector's emissions from rising.
Iata committed itself earlier this month to zero net emissions of CO2 by 2050, after having previously targeted a cut of just 50 per cent. A group representing European airlines, airports and aerospace companies has made a similar commitment.
At the state level, the European Union hopes to cut emissions by 55 per cent compared with 1990 levels by 2030, aviation included. The United States intends to slash the sector's emissions share by a fifth by the end of this decade.
The European group of airlines, airports and aerospace companies hopes half the emissions targets can be met with more fuel-efficient engines, the emergence of hydrogen and electric propulsion, as well as a better management of air traffic.
Iata says plans to reach the net zero target also rely on carbon-offsetting schemes, such as planting trees, which NGOs say do not address the problem.
"If there's a 'silver bullet' to decarbonising aviation, it's sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs)," says Mr Brian Moran, Boeing's vice-president of sustainability public policy. Iata hopes to accomplish two-thirds of its emissions reductions by using SAFs - non-conventional fuels derived from organic products including cooking oil and algae.
Aviation giants Boeing and Airbus say their planes will be burning 100 per cent SAFs by the end of this decade. SAFs, which are four times more expensive than kerosene, accounted for less than 0.1 per cent of the fuel used in aviation in 2019.
The US is proposing a tax credit to encourage SAF use while the EU wants to put a new levy on kerosene for flights within the 27-nation bloc.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
