Climate Change News
Below are news items on climate change – many with relevance to aviation
Gatwick expansion consultation ends 1st December – its plans would have ‘few benefits’
The Gatwick consultation on its plans to use its northern, standby, runway as a full runway, ends on 1st December. It is important that anyone who has strong views on the issue submits a response, even if a very brief one. The impact of the expansion would be to hugely increase noise, carbon emissions, local road and rail congestion, air pollution, light pollution and more. The airport is trying to talk up its plans, with extravagant and improbable claims of the number of jobs that might be created locally, and the positive economic impact. Local campaign group, GACC, has prepared extensive comments to the consultation, to help people respond. Also a short, quick version that people can use - or ideally adapt into their own words - to express their concerns. GACC says Gatwick's plans "would have few benefits but serious climate change consequences and devastating impacts on local communities and people under flight paths.” Any increase in jobs would be by displacement from other regions and would be inconsistent with the government’s ‘levelling up’ plans. And its case for growth simply doesn’t stack up and the consequences are unthinkable.
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Airlines will not be able to avoid higher costs if they use novel (lower carbon) fuels
The CEO of Delta, which is probably the world second biggest airline, has said that tackling climate change will make flying more expensive. [And so it should]. Ed Bastian claims that after spending $30m (£22.4m) a year on carbon-offsetting the airline has been "carbon neutral" since March 2020. It has also pledged to spend $1bn over the next decade to cancel out all the emissions it creates. It gives no details of how it is doing this, and it is well known that most carbon offsets do not work, and the carbon is NOT "cancelled out." The most effective way to cut the greenhouse gases produced by aviation is to have fewer flights and fewer passengers. But the airlines all intend to grow, perhaps by 3% per year if they can. Their only hope of reducing their emissions a little, while they expand, is novel aviation fuels (referred to as sustainable aviation fuel) - SAF. These will be difficult to produce, and probably impossible to produce in the amounts the aviation industry want. The cost of these fuels is high, which will mean more expensive flying. Delta wants to use 10% sustainable aviation fuel by the end of 2030. Ryanair wants 12.5% SAF by 2030; IAG wants 10% by 2030. The EU says SAF currently accounts for just 0.05% of jet fuel use in the EU.
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Ammonia suggested as a possible future “low carbon” jet fuel – but problematic
A British company is hoping to use ammonia, in order to create "low carbon" flight in future decades. The hope is to produce ammonia (NH3) using the very energy intensive Haber Bosch process, which is how fertiliser is produced. Unless it used genuinely low carbon electricity for the process, a lot of carbon would be produced. The aspiration is that liquid ammonia could be stored in tanks on aircraft, and then - using the heat from the engines - "cracked" to produce hydrogen, which would fuel the plane. However NOx gases is produced in the process, and N2O is a highly potent greenhouse gas. Engines would need to have a second process, to turn the NOx into just water and nitrogen gas. The company wanting to do this hopes existing planes could be modified, though this would mean installing the cracker/heat exchanger unit next to each engine pod on an aircraft wing, and changes to fuel tanks. It is likely that an airliner with these modifications would only be able to fly short trips, of under 2,000km. Ammonia fuel would cost a great deal more than fossil kerosene - and it is a toxic and corrosive substance, that can damage many metals.
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Ireland’s subsidies for aviation fuel may be reviewed after COP26 deal
The Irish government may need to review aviation subsidies worth hundreds of millions of euros in response to the outcome of of the COP26 negotiations. This Irish support totalled €2.4 billion in 2019, according to Central Statistics Office data, and was dominated by the excise duty exemption for jet kerosene. Separately, airports received €23 million in state aid this year to compensate for pandemic-related losses, on top of a similar figure last year. The Irish environment minister, Eamon Ryan, said the European Commission wanted to resurrect plans to impose a minimum tax rate for aviation fuels as part of its 2030 climate plan. This proposal was parked when the pandemic hit. Airlines have fought against the tax. In last year’s general election, the Green Party campaigned to end “harmful subsidies that prioritise flying” and reintroduce the €10 air passenger travel tax abolished during the last recession. The issue of whether to agree globally on limiting fossil fuel subsidies was a key part of the COP negotiations, with producing countries (and others) deeply opposed to meaningful cuts.
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Stay Grounded network say new aviation climate declaration fails to reduce sector’s future emissions
An aviation climate declaration launched at COP26 on 10th November has failed to place any firm limits on future airport expansion, or growth in aviation demand. As part of the new "International Aviation Climate Ambition Coalition" (IACAC), member states that signed up have committed to working together, they say, to reduce aviation CO2 emissions in line with the aim to limit the global average temperature increase to 1.5°C. But sustainable transport network Stay Grounded said the declaration will not substantially contribute to aligning the aviation sector with the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C limit. The proposed techno-fixes (electric aircraft, hydrogen, biofuels or e-fuels) will not cut emissions, if the sector expands. As well as preventing the construction of more airport infrastructure, and measures to encourage behaviour change, there need to be taxes on jet fuel and bans on short-haul flights. Mira Kapfinger, of Stay Grounded said: "Far-off targets for 2050 are not worth the paper they are written on ... Relying on CORSIA to reduce flight emissions is like waiting for flying pigs. It simply does not work.... the commitments in the declaration are neither new nor ambitious”.
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The alternative (hoax) “International Aviation Carbon Ambition Coalition” website – what the real one should say !
Persons unknown have taken the opportunity of the launch by the government at COP26, of a new grouping called the International Aviation Carbon Ambition Coalition", to provide a (sadly, spoof....) website for the organisation. The website, IACAC, has the sorts of commitments the real organisation should - and does not - propose or commit to. Some of the hoax commitments are, in summary: 1. Halve air traffic emissions departing from signatory countries by 2030, from 2005 levels. 2. Include emissions from flight departures (both domestic and international) within signatory country’s Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). 3. Introduce a minimum jet fuel tax of €0.33 per litre. 4. Not use carbon offsetting as an emissions reduction measure. and 5. Ban crop-based aviation biofuel. This involves the commitment to strengthen CORSIA’s sustainability criteria for Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF). These are the sorts of changes that ICAO and global organisations responsible for the aviation industry and its climate impact, should be starting work on.
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UK-led COP aviation declaration – “International Aviation Climate Ambition Coalition” (IACAC) – too weak to clean up flying
The "International Aviation Climate Ambition Coalition" (IACAC) has been launched by the UK government at the COP26 climate change summit. Its declaration is too weak to reduce flying’s climate impact. It relies too much on ICAO's CORSIA scheme to try to limit some aviation emissions. The number of global air passengers and cargo is expected to increase significantly over the next few decades, but the CORSIA scheme will be ineffective, and airlines are resistant to measures that would reduce demand for flights. At least now the UK has included international aviation in its national carbon target, which means cuts (or net reductions) will have to be made - but most countries have not even done that. The text of the IACAC merely contains non-committal statements such as "supporting", "taking steps", "working together", "ensuring", "advancing", "promoting" and "convening." One commitment is: "Promoting the development and deployment, through international and national measures, of sustainable aviation fuels that reduce lifecycle emissions ...avoiding competition with food production for land use and water supply."
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HACAN calls for end to aviation greenwash and false “solutions”
Ahead of Transport Day (10th November) at COP26, community group HACAN were joined by a cross-party group of MPs and Peers outside Parliament to call for an end of greenwash from the aviation industry. Hacan said that instead of shifting responsibility to the international mechanism CORSIA, that heavily relies on greenwashed false 'solutions' such as offsets and so-called alternative fuels, Governments must take responsibility for aviation emissions in their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). In a climate emergency the only thing we can do right now to cut emissions from flying is to fly less. Even with some of the techno-fixes the aviation sector hopes for, by 2050 it is likely to be adding about 12% of the 205 Giga-tonnes remaining global CO2 budget. The sector must not be allowed to continue growing, based on greenwashing claims about low-carbon fuels in future, which are highly unlikely to materialise on any large scale. Parliamentarians attending were Rupa Huq, Baroness Jones, Baroness Kramer, John McDonnell, Sarah Olney, David Simmonds, Andy Slaughter and Munira Wilson.
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Stay grounded protests across many countries, on 6th November, during COP26
There were numerous protests, timed to be during the Glasgow COP talks, on Saturday 6th November. The aim was to highlight the need to reduce the demand for flying, and the number of flights being taken, globally. Also to point out the deceptive, misleading "greenwash" being peddled by the aviation industry, and enthusiastically taken up by governments, especially the UK government. The industry is placing its hopes in novel techno-fixes (electric planes, hydrogen, new fuels made from wastes or from supposedly excess renewably generated electricity, in future). None of those can be scaled up to anything even faintly the scale of demand, especially as the industry is planning continued rapid growth, for several more decades. The greenwash is dangerous, as it gives people a false, unjustifiable, sense that they can fly "without guilt" as the sector has brilliant solutions to carbon emissions, just around the corner. The greenwash is intended to permit more "business as usual" flying, with no reduction. Details here of many of the protests, organised through the Stay Grounded network.
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FLY LESS campaign from Stansted Airport Watch
To coincide with the start of the COP26 international climate change summit in Glasgow, Stansted Airport Watch (‘SAW’) is launching its “Fly Less” campaign. Aviation currently accounts for around 9.4% of UK territorial carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions - about 38.5 MtCO2 in 2019 out of around 410 Mt CO2. On present trends aviation could be the largest single source of UK CO2 emissions by 2050. Stansted is (or was in 2019) the largest single source of CO2 emissions in the East of England. The Government’s independent advisor, the Climate Change Committee, has called for a slowdown in the level of air travel and a freeze on UK airport expansion until the aviation sector can show a significant reduction in its CO2 emissions. But so far the Government has rejected this call, or any attempts at behaviour change, and is instead putting its faith in technological solutions. SAW’s ‘Fly Less’ campaign will be publicised on its website and social media, supported by posters, banners and car window stickers. SAW will also be writing to the chairmen of the FTSE top 100 UK companies, encouraging businesses to play their part by reducing business flights, which emit far more carbon per seat than economy flights.