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Aviation industry announced deep emission cut

By Si Tingting (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-12-09 00:20

Aviation industry announced deep emission cut

Environmental activists dressed like trees marched inside the congress centre to send the message to the particpants about rainforest preservation, on the second day of the United Nations Climate Change Conference 2009 in Copenhagen. [China Daily]

A life-size ice sculpture of polar bear, with a bronze skeleton inside, was place in downtown Copenhagen to send a powerful environmental message when the Arctic animal art piece melts. This is a work of the British sculptor Mark Coreth and he will soon make a new ice bear for a similar show in Trafalgar Square in London.[China Daily]

COPENHAGEN:The world aviation industry is to pledge to cut carbon dioxide emissions to half the 2005 levels by 2050, said representatives of the airline industry at a side event during the UN Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen on December 8.

The agreement reached between 230 IATA airlines, along with aircraft manufacturers, air traffic control providers and airports, sets the industry a series of targets: it will improve fuel efficiency on average by 1.5 percent per year until 2020; it will stabilize emissions with carbon-neutral growth from 2020. And by 2050, we aspire to cut emissions in half, compared to 2005 levels.

However, final decisions on the execution of the ambitious goal will be made in September 2010.

“We’re the only industry coming to Copenhagen with a clear and ambitious reduction goal,” said Giovanni Bisignani, director general and CEO of International Air Transport Association (IATA).

The industry leaders are aiming at the use of more clean fuels, such as sustainable biofuel, to meet the target.

The last time global targets were agreed for reducing greenhouse gases was at the 1997 conference in Kyoto, but the airline industry was not included. In the years since, scientific evidence has supported growing concerns that carbon emissions caused by flying are a real problem. Airlines are responsible for 2-3 per cent of CO2 emissions globally.