Climate Change – Revolution in Aviation

Aviation does, of course, get widespread coverage in the media. More often than not in recent years this has been linked to growth and increases in capacity and the consequent issues that accompany such growth in terms of external costs. Unfortunately, in some instances, this coverage is negative and implies that aviation is perhaps a bigger polluter than it really is.

 

Before considering the external costs of aviation, it’s worth pausing to reflect on the numerous critical and complex issues in aviation that need to be addressed before an aircraft can even become airborne. These are fundamental aspects like safety, security, flight planning and adherence to legislation and regulation. And so, while aviation specialists and managers are focused on delivering the rigorous demands of running the operation, it can be difficult for them to take on what can seem to be “nice to have” environmental criteria, which quite often clash with other, more pressing, parameters that they are striving to achieve consistently around the clock, namely the safety and security of each and every passenger and aircraft.

 

This reflection can help highlight one of the main challenges slowing down significant progress on covering the external costs of transportation as an industry: the lack of awareness amongst the public, and I include passengers and transport industry staff here in the term ‘public’. If people truly understood the direct link between their actions and the impact on the environment, if they could relate to and understand the effect of each action they make and each decision they take, then I think the  response would be more powerful. There is a real pressing need to share information about the external costs of transport (as a whole, and not just aviation) to help drive changes in behaviour and to support the industry leaders who are working towards covering the external costs of their operations in the transport sector.

 

Even with the current economic downturn putting pressure on the transport sector, and aviation in particular, Climate Change is maintaining its importance in the media and is still headline-grabbing in relation to the transport industry. It is good to see that there is an appetite out there for a global solution currently being driven by key transport stakeholders. This is even truer in aviation, where there’s already a plethora of internal initiatives aimed at tackling the environmental impact of our industry, with various elements of the industry coming together and calling for a global policy framework for addressing carbon dioxide emissions (e.g. the Aviation Global Deal Group, comprising British Airways, Cathay Pacific Airways, Air France KLM, Virgin Atlantic Airways, BAA and international non-governmental organisation The Climate Group).

 

Whilst there are diverging initiatives around the world, with several of the world’s biggest airlines pledging to meet environmental performance standards, the focus is mainly on CO2 emissions, without any remedial action for the other external costs of aviation. These different approaches can seem piecemeal, fragmented and weak, highlighting the real and urgent need for balance and for a global framework, and further highlighting the necessity of having a detailed assessment of aviation’s total external costs and issues – as a whole ‘big picture’. 

 

Currently, there is no single point of reference that can provide an overall picture. Therefore, without knowing what the total external costs are, it is impossible to effectively and holistically assess the situation in order to start tackling the issues effectively and in a meaningful way that the public can also relate to.

 

In this blog, I would like to encourage a debate, and get people talking about the Climate Change issues and challenges we face as an industry. Rather than wait for the processes, proposals and ‘solutions’ to be be made and presented by politicians and bureaucrats, I believe that as industry leaders, who know this business better than anyone else, we need to get involved in shaping the outcome and the solutions. We need to be the role model, rather than the whipping boy. 

 

It is a good start to see that aviation stakeholders and business leaders have recently made direct recommendations to the UN climate change officials on how the industry’s CO2 emissions should be accounted for, with growing calls for the inclusion of international aviation under a framework.

 

This is a truly unique opportunity for aviation leaders around the world to join forces with various other related groups and organisations to lead aviation in the next revolution, one that would drive it into becoming a truly sustainable industry. Organisations such as IATA, which is urging the aviation industry and governments to bring an aligned global approach on aviation carbon emissions to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change conference to be held in December in Copenhagen. Earlier this year, Bisignani (IATA) called on governments to define a sectoral approach in Kyoto 2 with global accounting for aviation’s emissions through the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO).

 

I will be expanding further on the issues raised in future postings on this blog, and look forward to interacting with the readers and exploring feedback and concerns on the critical topic of Climate Change within the transport industry. 

 

Key dates and timelines to Climate Change events that were referenced in this blog include: ICAO’s 15-country Group on International Aviation and Climate Change (GIACC) will be producing proposals and targets in preparation for Copenhagen. The fourth and final GIACC meeting was held in May, with a report planned to be presented to the 187th ICAO Council Session on June 29. Ahead of Copenhagen, ICAO has agreed to hold a “High-Level Meeting on International Aviation and Climate Change” Oct. 7-9 in Montreal. The Copenhagen Summit is planned for December 2009.

Advertisement