Green skies?

The rapid rise to prominence of the climate change issue has been nothing short of astounding. At the RAAA Convention in mid October, Anna Matysek of CRA International delivered the keynote address, entitled ‘Policy Options for Mitigation of Emissions in Aviation’.

This incisive address gave many delegates their first serious insight into the potential regulatory and economic repercussions likely to stem from the climate change debate, and certainly dismissed the notion that it would all go away in time.

The AAA Convention in November picked up more strongly on the issue, with a particularly valuable and interesting panel debate which occupied all of the first afternoon.

Then, in late November, the AUSAC hosted GreenSkies conference spent two exceptionally valuable days exploring and contributing to the climate change debate.

This conference presented a very balanced and highly competent panel of international speakers, from both sides of the debate, and proved to be a not to be missed event. Sadly, however, there were very few airlines represented.

Perhaps the most significant theme of the conference was that the debate over the impact of fossil fuel burning is now over, and it is time for governments to take decisive action to prevent an economic catastrophe.

According to almost all of the speakers there is no longer any doubt about the human impact on climate change, and consequently policy changes are happening fast. The technological advances being made by aircraft and engine manufacturers to reduce emissions, good though they are, will not be sufficient to offset the projected growth in the industry.

Consequently the Australian aviation industry will be paying for its domestic emissions through an Australian Domestic Emissions Trading Scheme by 2011 at the latest. Virgin Blue pointed out that it established the first Government certified carbon offsets scheme in the industry in March 2007, but added that it was really only treating the symptoms rather than the cause. Nevertheless it was seen to be useful in increasing awareness of the issue prior to the emissions trading scheme’s introduction.

The European Commission’s Head of Aviation Environmental Policy, Roberto Salvarani, gave an impassioned presentation in which he stated that climate change is currently the top priority of European heads of state, and that aviation is at the top of their climate change hit list. He castigated ICAO for not having yet taken action to reduce carbon emissions, and attacked the US and its supporters for objecting to Europe’s planned extension of the European Union’s emissions trading scheme to international airlines entering or departing its airspace from 2012. He suggested that the cost of the scheme would add a maximum of E39 (A$65) to the price of the average long haul ticket.

Sadly the European case lost a lot of credibility when it became clear that the same European heads of state could reduce greenhouse gas emissions from aircraft by up to 18 per cent if they could agree to give up sovereignty over their individual national air traffic management systems in favour of a single unified system.

Steve Shallhorn from Greenpeace and Jeff Gazzard from the European GreenSkies Alliance gave very useful presentations explaining their organisations’ concerns and why urgent and decisive action is needed now.

Greenpeace made the statement that carbon taxes are inevitable to force a reduction in emissions. The European GreenSkies Alliance argued strongly for a tax in the order of 3. 6 pence per kilometre to hold emissions at their current rate by restricting growth to around 1. 2 per cent, which is the average projected rate of emissions reductions through new technology.

John Doherty from the Department of Transport and Regional Services made a highly competent presentation in which he outlined how policy had been developing prior to the election.

In relation to economic measures, he indicated that emissions trading offered the least expensive but most effective policy option, whereas carbon taxes appeared to do little if anything for the environment. He pointed out that offsets could also help, but the actual benefits would have to be verifiable. In relation to a question about the value of user preferred trajectories and flex-tracks to reduce time and fuel burn if aircraft then had to hold to await the expiration of a curfew, he agreed that there will necessarily be tensions between the need to reduce emissions and the need to protect citizens from noise in the vicinity of major airports.

Rob Midgely, Shell’s technology manager, aviation fuels, gave a brilliant address on technology related to the development and use of alternate fuels. He summed up his presentation by pointing out that there is unlikely to be any alternative to kerosene fuel for a long time to come, despite promising work on bio fuels.

For those present, the GreenSkies conference left no doubt that we as an industry must get ourselves educated very quickly and work together to provide input into the policy debate. Unless we do that, we will be quickly overtaken by those who do care enough to lobby for change. The issue is real, and it is not going to go away. The stakes for the whole global community are enormous.

Expect to see and hear much more on this issue in the coming months. o Australian Aviation is proud to be the official supporting journal of the Regional Aviation Association of Australia. The views in this column are those of the RAAA, and not necessarily Australian Aviation’s