Aerospace Industries Association
World’s Civil Aviation Community Endorses Climate Change Policy Through ICAO
AIA and company representatives from Boeing, General Electric, Pratt & Whitney and Rolls-Royce North America were observers at a historic meeting in Montreal this month where member states affirmed their commitment to work through ICAO to reduce aviation emissions that contribute to climate change. The endorsing states represent 93 percent of commercial air traffic worldwide.
The U.S. delegation to the Oct. 7-9 meeting was led by FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt. He was joined by about 50 other aviation leaders from around the world and more than a dozen international stakeholders. The attendees reviewed the report presented by the Group on International Aviation and Climate Change (GIACC) to ICAO in July.
Additionally, in cooperation with manufacturing associations from Brazil, China, Canada and Europe, as well as international associations representing airports (ACI), airlines (IATA), and air navigation service providers (CANSO), AIA submitted a paper to ICAO with a strong global commitment from industry.
In that paper, industry committed to improve civil aviation fuel efficiency by 1.5 percent through 2020 and pledged to work towards carbon neutrality beyond 2020, a 50 percent absolute reduction in aviation CO2 emissions (compared to a baseline of 2005) by 2050. Industry also strongly proposed that aviation CO2 emissions reductions be guided by ICAO under a global sectoral approach.
While industry's medium- and long-term proposals were too ambitious for some developing countries, a consensus declaration was reached Oct. 9. The ICAO member states and relevant organizations agreed to "work through ICAO to achieve a global annual average fuel efficiency improvement of 2 percent over the medium term until 2020 and an aspirational global fuel efficiency improvement rate of 2 percent per annum over the long term from 2021 to 2050." The group in Montreal did not endorse industry’s global sectoral approach and did not agree to absolute reductions in the long term, but there was general agreement that ICAO should move forward to develop stronger and more ambitious goals in the years ahead.
The attendees recognized the uniqueness of business aviation by directing ICAO to "explore the relevance of GIACC’s fuel efficiency metric to international business aviation." They also invited the international air transport industry to “further elaborate the implementation framework and strategies for the collective commitment of the international air transport industry."
This is significant because, for the first time in the area of aviation and climate change, the international civil aviation organization and the world's regulators recognized the industry's native expertise and called on it to take a leading role in the future.
On Nov. 2, ICAO will meet to approve the consensus declaration. ICAO’s position will be presented at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change deliberations in Copenhagen Dec. 7-18, which AIA will also attend.
Source: dan.elwell[at]aia-aerospace.org
