International Air Transport Association CEO says “air transport’s carbon footprint is growing; that is not acceptable”, appoints new head of environmental initiatives

In Switzerland, the International Air Transport Association appointed a global director of environment initiatives.

Giovanni Bisignani, Director General and CEO of IATA said, “Air transport takes its environmental responsibility seriously. Alongside safety and security it is a pillar on which we have built a great global industry. Despite our good track record, air transport’s carbon footprint is growing. That is not acceptable. Our vision is for air transport to achieve carbon neutral growth in the medium-term, on the way to a carbon emission free future.”

Paul Steele, the new executive, was formerly COO at the World Wildlife Fund. He will have his work cut out for him. The debate over aviation’s contribution to greenhouse gas emissions currently lacks a standard over the measurement of greenhouse gas emissions at the altitudes in which jet aircraft typically operate.

Accordingly, there has been an ongoing dispute between some environmental groups, such as Friends of the Earth, and IATA on the tally of emissions.

Environmental groups typically include a calculation called “radiative force”, which attempts to multiply greenhouse gas emissions by a factor that takes into account the effect of high altitude. Using this method, it has been stated that airlines are responsible for 12 to 13 percent of all greenhouse gases. IATA uses a figure of 3 percent, or 600 million tons of CO2.

IATA has set a goal of making planes 25 percent more fuel efficient by 2022, but with airlines expected to increase fleet size by 140 percent in the next 20 years, such an effort would not keep pace with the rate of airline fleet growth.

Accordingly, IATA has set a goal for the airline industry of producing “zero emission” planes within 50 years. The presumption is that new fuel technologies will emerge that will make this possible.

For now, with solar power not yet able to generate sufficient energy to power jet engines, airlines have been increasingly exploring biofuels. Virgin CEO Richard Branson has invested in biobutanol production and is conducting biofuels tests next year in a Virgin 747.

Biodiesel is also a candidate fuel. B100 was successfully tested in the BioJet last month at an altitude of 17,000 feet, and the BioJet is scheduled to make a US transcontinental test flight next month.

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