The EU ETS must be strengthened or its impact on aviation emissions will be minimal, says Tyndall study
Fri 21 Nov 2008 - The Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the UK's Manchester University has just published a working paper that assesses the implications on climate targets of including aviation within the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme. It concludes that unless the scheme adopts both an early baseline year and an overall cap in keeping with a 450ppmv CO2 equivalent cumulative emission pathway, its impact on aviation emissions will be minimal. The authors say carbon prices will need to be much higher or other stringent constraints will be required to restrict the rapid growth in aviation emissions. Read more ...
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Austria's aviation industry combines to produce a publication to support its climate protection activities
Fri 21 Nov 2008 - Austrian Airlines Group, the Austrian air navigation services provider Austro Control and six Austrian airports have jointly published a report called 'The Environment and Aviation', which aims to document the multi-faceted efforts of the country's air transport industry in support of environmental and climate protection. Meanwhile, Austrian Airlines has released details of the recent performance of its passenger carbon offset scheme, which show an 8.5 per cent take-up on online bookings. Read more ...
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Costa Rica's NatureAir becomes the first airline to join the United Nations' Climate Neutral Network
Fri 21 Nov 2008 - Having laid claim to becoming the world's first carbon neutral airline, Costa Rica-based NatureAir has now joined the Climate Neutral Network (CN Net), an initiative led by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to promote global action towards low-carbon economies and societies. In 2004, the airline pledged to offset all its carbon emissions through the purchase of government carbon credits, paid for by increasing fares, and used for the protection of tropical forests in southern Costa Rica. Read more ...
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UK's new Transport Secretary says supporting aviation and protecting the environment are completely compatible
Thu 20 Nov 2008 - The UK's new Secretary of State for Transport, Geoff Hoon, said in a speech delivered to the Airport Operators Association (AOA) Annual Conference in London earlier this week that the debate around the future of aviation has become extremely polarized. He said there were three main myths which needed to be tackled concerning the environment, airport capacity and high-speed rail links. AOA's Executive Chairman Ed Anderson told delegates the impending switch by the Government to an aircraft-based duty was "the wrong tax at the wrong time". Read more ...
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Europe's failure to implement a Single European Sky is an environmental embarrassment, says IATA
Thu 20 Nov 2008 - The failure to implement an effective Single European Sky (SES) is Europe's biggest environmental embarrassment, IATA Director General and CEO Giovanni Bisignani told high-level delegates to the European Aviation Summit held in Bordeaux, France earlier this week. He challenged Europe to deliver the SES by 2012 to coincide with aviation's inclusion into the EU Emissions Trading Scheme. He was supported by the Association of European Airlines, who described the present ATM system as a "morass of inefficiency". Read more ...
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SESAR announces 100 emissions-reducing European green procedure flight trials to take place in 2009
Wed Nov 19 2008 - The SESAR programme, the operational and technology component of Europe's Single European Sky (SES) air traffic modernization legislation, has received a kick-start with the announcement that over 100 flight trials, involving 17 partners representing airlines, airports, air navigation service providers and industry, will take place during next year under the Atlantic Interoperability Initiative to Reduce Emissions (AIRE) framework. Greener flight procedures could potentially reduce carbon emissions per flight by 10 percent. Read more ...
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United Airlines becomes first US carrier to undertake fuel and emissions saving ASPIRE flight
Mon 17 Nov 2008 - United Airlines became the first US carrier to participate in the trans-Pacific ASPIRE initiative last Friday (Nov 14) when a Boeing 747-400 flight between Sydney and San Francisco undertook 11 gate-to-gate operational procedures, from priority take-off clearance to a tailored arrival, that resulted in savings of 1,564 gallons (5,920 litres) of fuel and 32,656 pounds (14.81 tonnes) of carbon emissions over normal conditions. Read more ...
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Report challenges claims that airline and tourism expansion benefits the economy and poorer nations
Mon 17 Nov 2008 - A new report, entitled Plane Truths, from the new economics foundation (nef) and the World Development Movement (WDM) claims that increased air travel and tourism leaves UK taxpayers out of pocket and benefits multinational tour operators and hotel chains rather than poor people. Also, as the fastest-rising source of emissions in the UK, it maintains aviation is a significant contributor to climate change that threatens the survival of some of the world's poorest communities. Read more ...
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Environment is the new imperative, aviation industry delegates to air navigation conference are told
Fri 14 Nov 2008 - The aviation industry must accelerate implementation of advanced airspace management technologies to counteract pressure from a public increasingly concerned about the environment, delegates to a Seattle conference on Performance Based Navigation (PBN) were told earlier this week. PBN relies on GPS guidance and advanced flight management systems to guide aircraft on very precise vertical and horizontal tracks, enabling them to take more efficient routes and save both fuel and emissions Read more ...
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FedEx commits to reducing the carbon emissions of its aircraft fleet by 20 percent by 2020
Fri 14 Nov 2008 - FedEx has pledged to cut the carbon dioxide emissions of its aircraft fleet by 20 percent by 2020, mainly to be achieved through investing in more fuel-efficient aircraft as well as 30 other initiatives, with matching reductions in its vehicle fleet. Since 2005, the corporation says it has reduced aircraft emissions by 3.7 percent per available ton mile. FedEx Express and FedEx Freight operate three solar-powered facilities in California and recently broke ground for its largest solar-powered hub to date in Cologne, Germany. Read more ...
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Jatropha-based biofuel cleared for take-off on Air New Zealand test flight early next month
Thu 13 Nov 2008 - Air New Zealand and Boeing have announced that the world's first flight using a second-generation biofuel will take place from Auckland on December 3. Derived from sustainably grown jatropha sourced from south-eastern Africa and India, the crude oil was converted to biojet fuel using UOP's processing technology. According to Rolls-Royce, the biofuel has met or exceeded all technical specifications during laboratory testing. Read more ...
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Airlines welcome decision by Belgian Government to drop proposals for an airline passenger tax
Mon 10 Nov 2008 - Protests by airlines, airports and tour operators have succeeded in overturning a recent proposal by the Belgian Government to impose an airline passenger ticket tax that was intended to raise an estimated 132 million euros ($170m) annually. An online petition to stop the tax gathered 36,000 names in just two weeks. Meanwhile, the European Parliament's rapporteur on the directive to include aviation into the EU ETS has criticized the UK and the Netherlands on their refusals to earmark revenues for climate change mitigation. Read more ...
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Survey of British attitudes to air travel and its impact on the environment discovers a lack of consistency
Fri 7 Nov 2008 - Another survey of British air travellers shows a familiar pattern of concern by the public over green issues such as climate change and aircraft noise and air pollution but an unwillingness to let it alter their flying habits. The study, commissioned by Camcon Technology and carried out by international research agency YouGov, reveals that almost three-quarters (74 percent) were worried about the effects yet only 22 percent admitted the issue had affected the number of flights they took. Read more ...
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Jatropha-based jet biofuel in final tests at Rolls-Royce before Air New Zealand test flight in December
Thu 6 Nov 2008 - The jatropha-based jet biofuel to power one of the four engines on the Air New Zealand Boeing 747-400 test flight set to take place next month has passed preliminary testing at the Rolls-Royce facility in Derby, UK. The exact date of the flight is to be confirmed once the fuel has completed a rigorous testing process to further validate its specifications. The airline also reports it has recently completed its first Required Navigation Performance (RNP) enabled A320 flight between Sydney and Queenstown, saving fuel and carbon emissions as well as reducing noise levels. Read more ...
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European pressure on ICAO and third countries to come up with global proposals on emissions reductions
Mon 3 Nov 2008 - Delegates to last week's conference in Geneva, Meeting the Environmental Challenge, organized by the European Commission and the European Civil Aviation Conference (ECAC), heard calls for an international dialogue and a comprehensive approach in reducing aviation greenhouse gas emissions. If aviation is not ready to take the appropriate steps now, States will force the industry to act by probably demanding even tougher measures, said Moritz Leuenberger, Swiss Minister for Transport and Environment. Non-EU representatives, however, expressed their continuing concerns over Europe's Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). Read more ...
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