The aviation industry requires more carrot and fewer stick going forward to turn out to be more sustainable, in line with the director general of the International Air Transport Association.
Speaking at CNBC’s Sustainable Future Forum on Friday, Willie Walsh was asked if subsidies and tax breaks to encourage investments into cleaner energy were more practical than firms or consumers being taxed for emitting higher levels of carbon.
“Quite truthfully, all the evidence that we’ve available shows that the carrot is much more practical than the stick,” Walsh replied.
Expanding on his point, Walsh went on to explain taxation as being “a really blunt instrument — in lots of cases, actually, it could make our industry less efficient.”
“I do not think it could stop the variety of planes flying, it could definitely reduce the number of individuals flying on the planes,” he added. “And that might be a silly thing to do.”
“What we’d like to do is to make sure that our planes are more full slightly than less full, and to offer incentives to provide sustainable aviation fuels which can make a real impact on the environmental footprint of aviation.”
The European Union is currently trying to revise its energy taxation directive. Amongst other things, this is able to see each maritime and aviation fuels taxed.
Net-zero goals
In Oct. 2021, IATA member airlines passed a resolution “committing them to achieving net-zero carbon emissions from their operations by 2050.”
Given the actual fact it’s a vital cog in the worldwide economy, conversations about aviation and its effect on the environment will undoubtedly happen on the COP27 climate change conference being held in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.
It is because despite its importance, aviation has been described by the World Wildlife Fund as “certainly one of the fastest-growing sources of the greenhouse gas emissions driving global climate change.”
The WWF also says air travel is “currently essentially the most carbon intensive activity a person could make.”
During his appearance on the Sustainable Future Forum, IATA’s Walsh was asked how difficult it was for the airline industry to decarbonize in comparison with others.
“It’s totally difficult … we account for about 2.4% of manmade CO2 today,” he said.
“We recognise nevertheless, as other industries decarbonize — and for a lot of them there are relatively easy pathways to decarbonization — our contribution will increase, because we’ll proceed to be depending on kerosene to power our aircraft,” he added.
“Now, technology will provide some solutions but … we’re not prepared to rely on something being developed in the longer term, we recognize we’ve to do something now.”
“So for us, the important thing to our goal is using sustainable aviation fuels — the science there may be proven.”
“What we have got to do is turn what may be very low levels of production of sustainable fuels into widespread availability.”
This, Walsh argued, represented an actual opportunity not just for the industry but “countries world wide to begin producing a sustainable jet fuel.”
Such a move would “address the environmental issues but … also create jobs.”
The overarching idea behind sustainable aviation fuels is that they will be used to scale back an aircraft’s emissions.
By way of content, aircraft maker Airbus has described SAF as being “constituted of renewable raw material.” It’s stated that essentially the most common feedstocks “are crops based or used cooking oil and animal fat.”
There are major concerns in some quarters that an increased uptake of SAF could, amongst other things, end in significant deforestation and create a squeeze on crops crucial to the production of food, a problem Walsh touched upon earlier this yr.
Back on the Sustainable Future Forum, Walsh struck an optimistic tone about his sector’s prospects going forward, whilst acknowledging that work lay ahead.
“I feel the incontrovertible fact that we’re committed to net zero by 2050 is vital, but demonstrating that we’ve a reputable pathway to … net zero is equally vital,” he said.
“And individuals are starting to acknowledge that through sustainable aviation fuels and other initiatives … we are able to achieve that clear goal.”
