(GreenAir Online) Over 20 European aviation and travel associations have called for a joint commitment between industry and policymakers to achieve net zero CO2 emissions from all flights within and departing from the EU by 2050.
As signatories to an ‘Aviation Round Table Report’, they have urged EU leaders to join and actively support an ‘EU Pact for Sustainable Aviation’ by the end of 2021 by contributing to a policy and financial framework they see as vital to enable the aviation sector to deliver on its sustainability commitments. The report details ways aviation can recover from the Covid-19 crisis whilst supporting the EU’s Green Deal objectives and build a greener, socially and economically robust future. These include an EU legislative framework on sustainable aviation fuels, funding and investment for low-carbon aircraft innovations and an incentive scheme for fleet renewal. The sector is also looking for EU aid in recovering from the pandemic.
“The European aviation sector believes that its recovery is fully compatible with, and should be accompanied by, broader efforts to reduce its environmental footprint, provided the right policies are in place,” say the authors of the ‘Aviation round table report on the recovery of European aviation’. “Therefore, the sector is committed to continue its efforts to reduce its negative environmental impacts, both locally and globally.”
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The signatories say the pact should specify the supporting policy framework and financial mechanisms needed at EU level to achieve the goals. This includes an urgent need for a comprehensive EU legislative framework to promote the uptake and deployment of sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) as well as the establishment of a green incentive scheme for fleet renewal coupled with retirement, and an increase in public co-funding for civil aviation research and innovation in fields such as electric propulsion and hydrogen and synthetic fuels. Recognition should also be given to the revision of the Single European Sky and the continuation of the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) alongside the global CORSIA carbon offsetting scheme for international aviation.
A comprehensive SAF framework with a dedicated stable set of policy measures and public investment plans to boost European production and uptake would help accelerate aviation decarbonisation and contribute towards achieving the EU’s 2030 climate goals, say the report’s authors. Particular attention should also be given to the medium- and long-term potential for synthetic fuels to be scaled up.
Subject to meeting strict sustainability criteria, they say measures should include:
- Public investment (including possible ownership) in SAF production facilities enabling the necessary de-risking required to debt finance projects as well as the execution of offtake contracts with aircraft operators;
- Support to private investment in SAF production, for example through grants and/or loan guarantees;
- Support to R&D in new SAF feedstock and production pathways.
The industry also advocates a progressive EU-wide blending mandate that would enable the European aviation sector to gradually increase the use of SAF, based on strict sustainability criteria, without compromising its competitiveness.
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It also calls for revenues collected through ETS allowances be ring-fenced and reinvested into aviation decarbonisation, for example through R&D funding or financial incentives to the deployment of SAF. By 2050, to achieve the net zero target, the report envisages any residual aviation emissions being removed from the atmosphere through offsetting involving natural carbon sinks, for example forests, or dedicated technologies such as carbon capture, usage and storage (CCUS).
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In the UK, meanwhile, Prime Minister Boris Johnson this week unveiled a 10-point plan for a green industrial revolution to help achieve the government’s net-zero emissions by 2050 pledge. One of the 10 actions is to support difficult to decarbonise industries such as aviation through research projects for zero-emission planes. The government recently set up a Jet Zero Council with high-level representatives from the sector.
Ahead of the government announcement, the industry coalition group Sustainable Aviation had called for support in three areas it considered critical to achieving net zero flight: the delivery of a UK SAF industry; making electric, hybrid and hydrogen powered aircraft a reality through the UK’s Aerospace Technology Institute; and the completion of airspace modernisation. Targeted loan guarantees and the provision of capital grants would be critical, they said, to delivering first-of-a-kind SAF plants that could lead to up to 14 UK plants generating sustainable fuel from household and industrial waste by the middle 2030s. READ MORE
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