Airlines aim high

Cape Town - On Tuesday the airline industry set ambitious targets for the reduction of its greenhouse gases.

By 2050 the industry hopes to release 50% less greenhouse gas (benchmarked against 2005 levels), and from 2020 become carbon neutral.

On Tuesday the International Air Transport Association (Iata), which represents 230 airlines from 120 countries, submitted its proposals for December's climate change negotiations to the UN secretary general's climate change summit in New York.

The aviation sector is responsible for 2% of all carbon dioxide emissions from human activity - even less than the shipping industry releases - but it is under heavy pressure from European governments, in particular, to reduce its greenhouse gases.

Aviation is a global industry and global solutions are required, because in only one flight an aircraft releases carbon dioxide over national borders and across the oceans.

Mechanisms designed for land-based polluters will therefore not be effective for the airline industry, Iata chief executive Giovanni Bisignani explained.

He criticised uncoordinated national and regional schemes that have created a patched-together mishmash of taxes to fill state coffers, but which do little to manage the industry's emissions.

The aircraft industry aims to improve fuel efficiency by an average 1.5% a year between now and 2020.

Bisignani acknowledged that the targets were strict. He expects the industry's greenhouse gas emissions to reduce by 7% this year - 5 percentage points owing to the recession and two percentage points thanks to the industry's Green strategy. It involves such initiatives as shorter routes and fuel efficiency.

- Sake24.com

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