Climate 411

Aviation on the Cusp: From COVID-19 to the Climate Crisis

This post was co-authored by Brad Schallert, World Wildlife Fund (WWF-US), and John Holler, WWF-US.

If you fly, you may know that flying is likely the largest part of your personal carbon footprint. What you may not know is that if aviation were its own country, it would be a top-ten carbon polluter. Plus, scientists now know that aircraft burning fuel in the upper atmosphere more than doubles the global warming impact of the carbon dioxide emissions alone– think of the heat-trapping contrails streaking across the sky that jets form high up in the atmosphere.

Aviation’s social license to operate depends on its ability to get on a flight path to net zero climate impact by 2050.

That’s a tall order, for two reasons.

First, the physics of aviation make it one of the hardest sectors in which to cut carbon – there are huge technological and economic barriers. The jets in service today are expensive, long-lived capital assets designed to fly on liquid fuel. While short-distance electric aircraft may take off in the next decade and a half, fully electric airplanes are unlikely to take over long-haul jet travel. Designing, testing, certifying and manufacturing more fuel-efficient jets and advanced non-fossil-based fuels is an urgent undertaking that will require not only significant dedication from the aviation industry, but also bold federal policy.

Second, the industry is focused on its own economic survival, not on the climate challenge. The pandemic has put tens of thousands of aviation jobs in jeopardy and walloped airlines and many of the businesses they serve. But if the Biden-Harris Administration doesn’t put dealing with the climate crisis at the core of aviation’s recovery, all the taxpayer funds spent on bailing out airlines won’t put the industry on a path to a sustainable future.

Aviation has reached an inflection point. Going back to the pre-COVID status quo is not a wise flightpath if the sector wants to be part of the solution to addressing the climate crisis. At the center of its recovery, it could, as President-elect Biden has urged, Build Back Better. The choice could not be starker.

That’s why the Biden-Harris Administration should start by establishing targets for the emissions of all US flights – domestic and international, passenger and cargo – that set our aviation sector on a path to net-zero emissions by 2050, with a waypoint of at least a 35% reduction from 2019 levels by 2035. Legislation would help, but existing statutes already give the relevant agencies broad authority: Read More »

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CORSIA: No, the ICAO Council can’t legally change CORSIA’s rules

ICAO building, Montreal

In March 2020 the International Air Transport Association (IATA) wrote to the 36-member Governing Council of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) requesting that the Council re-write the rules of ICAO’s flagship Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA). CORSIA requires airlines to offset their carbon emissions above the average of 2019-2020 emissions.

Citing the unexpectedly low aviation emissions due to the tragedy of the COVID-19 pandemic, which could result in an increase in offset obligations at such time as air travel emissions increase above this average level, IATA wants the ICAO Council to change the emissions baseline to 2019 only. They argue that implementing CORSIA with the 2019-2020 emissions baseline, as originally written, would impose an “inappropriate economic burden on international aviation.”

The request is ironic: In an effort to lure back customers, airlines are publicly touting their commitments to reducing emissions – including to carbon offsetting. But behind the closed doors of the ICAO Council, they’re pushing a re-write that would give them a free pass to escape offsetting requirements for three to five years or more, according to analyses by EDF and other experts.

The request for a hasty re-write raises an important legal question. Does the ICAO Council have the legal authority to change a decision of the ICAO Assembly? It appears that while the Council could, at the current session, recommend that the ICAO Assembly change the baseline, ICAO’s Council lacks the legal authority to undertake this change itself. Below we review (a) the legal authority of the Assembly; (b) the legal authority of the Council; and (c) the legal character of the CORSIA baseline and Council’s authority in light of that legal character.

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Posted in Aviation, Carbon Markets, United Nations / Comments are closed

CORSIA: 5 reasons why the ICAO Council shouldn’t move now to rewrite the rules of its aviation climate program

Airplane, jumbojet on runway preparing for takeoff at sunset at the airport. iStock

The International Civil Aviation Organization’s (ICAO) Council is meeting through June 26, and Council members have been asked to make a decision at this session that could undermine the agency’s flagship climate program.

ICAO’s Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA) requires airlines to offset emissions above a baseline set at the average of 2019-2020 emissions. However, the International Air Transport Association has asked the ICAO Council to change the baseline to reflect only 2019 emissions, citing the unexpectedly low aviation emissions in 2020 due to COVID-19 and concomitant potentially greater offset requirements for the industry.

Airlines have taken a massive hit due to the pandemic. They argue that they need to escape CORSIA requirements to save money. But hastily rewriting the fundamental structure of the industry’s market-based program to address airline carbon emissions would be penny-wise and future-foolish. Even as airlines are publicly touting their commitment to “sustainability measures like carbon offsetting,” the rule rewrite they are seeking behind the closed doors of the Council would give them a free pass to pollute with no offsetting requirements for three to five years or more, according to analyses by Environmental Defense Fund and other experts.

EDF is calling on the ICAO Council not to move now to change the rules of CORSIA. Deciding, at this Council session, to change the baseline year for CORSIA to 2019-only:

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Posted in Aviation, Carbon Markets, News, United Nations / Comments are closed

CORSIA: Industry-sought rule change threatens aviation climate program

https://www.pexels.com/photo/silhouette-of-airplane-during-sunset-99567/

Silhouette of Airplane during Sunset. Pixels.com

The coronavirus pandemic has created a global health and economic crisis that has affected families all over the world and nearly all industries, with aviation taking a particularly steep toll.

Airlines may feel under pressure to save money at any cost, but hastily rewriting the fundamental structure of the industry’s flagship market-based program to address airline carbon emissions would be penny-wise and future-foolish.

In a new analysis by Environmental Defense Fund, we look at the implications of a rule rewrite sought by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) to the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation, or CORSIA.

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Posted in Aviation, Carbon Markets, International, United Nations / Comments are closed

Three opportunities for the UN’s aviation agency to deliver climate action

Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash

As International Civil Aviation Organization’s (ICAO) 40th General Assembly kicks off this week in Montreal, aviation faces an existential challenge: the need to zero out its climate impact. Greta Thunberg, whose refusal to fly symbolizes the question every child of her generation will face, leads a climate strike on this Friday, that will march right to ICAO’s gates. Will their demands move the delegates representing 193 countries meeting inside?

Here are three opportunities the Assembly can take to back up their climate commitments with real action.

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Could aviation loopholes swallow climate progress?

Letting CDM credits into the aviation climate agreement could cut CORSIA’s effective participation from about three quarters down to less than 20 percent, negating its climate impact.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/dsleeter_2000/5081622399/

Airplane taking off from San Francisco. Flickr/ dsleeter_2000

As bleary-eyed negotiators at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP) in Katowice, Poland, struggle through late nights of haggling over rules for implementing the 2015 Paris Agreement, one challenge they face is how to energize a global competitive market for cutting climate pollution, while ensuring the integrity of that market.

Technical talks in the far recesses of the giant conference center are focused on two key issues: carbon credit quality, and accurate book-keeping.

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Posted in Aviation, Carbon Markets, News, Paris Agreement, United Nations / Read 2 Responses