Editorial: Too Little, Too Late?

By Perry Flint
Air Transport World, November 2009, p.2    

The air transport community went into last month's ICAO High Level Meeting on the environment in a rare state of unity behind a set of proposals with which it hoped to seize the high ground and first-mover status in the debate over the industry's responsibility toward reducing its greenhouse gas emissions.

In a working paper endorsed by organizations representing airlines, airports, air navigation services providers and aerospace manufacturers, the stakeholders proposed a 1.5% annual improvement in fuel/carbon efficiency to 2020; "carbon neutral growth" from 2020 and a longer-term "aspirational" goal to reduce net carbon emissions by 50% in 2050 compared to 2005.

The paper also endorsed taking a global sectoral approach to regulating aviation GHGs and tagged ICAO as the proper forum for establishing future environmental standards and any economic measures such as cap-and-trade. Adoption by the HLM would have put the industry in a strong position going into next month's UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.

Unfortunately, that did not occur. Call it poor planning or unfortunate timing, but the decision by ICAO to schedule a major meeting less than two months ahead of the summit meant that too many delegations arrived in Montreal with their hands tied by governments unwilling to make significant commitments or limit their options ahead of the big dance in Denmark. Particularly noteworthy, we're told, was the presence of a number of high-level environmental delegates rather than the aviation or transportation officials who typically attend such meetings.

The result can be described as mixed at best. Industry's offer of a 1.5% annual efficiency improvement was raised to 2%. But delegates checked on the other proposals, at least until the next general assembly in 2010. The HLM reaffirmed ICAO as the lead agency in matters involving international aviation, but this was to be expected.

It is difficult to know how this outcome will affect aviation at the COP 15. ICAO is a consensus-driven organization and faces the same economic and political strains and tensions between have and have-not states as the UN itself. Both IATA and the US Air Transport Assn. said they generally welcomed the results as a step in the right direction.

We expect, however, that these will be seen as insufficient by the environmentalist NGOs--and some governments--that will arrive in Copenhagen next month, many of them intending to pressure attendees into accepting their apocalyptic worldview of climate change. To them it will confirm the opinion that exempting aviation from Kyoto was a mistake not to be repeated this time and they will be anxious to settle on a firm cap on aviation emissions. ICAO's past inability to reach agreement on economic measures, after all, is cited by the EU as a key reason it is bringing aviation into its emissions trading scheme.

That eagerness to get started, by the way, is not limited to those who view aviation as a problem. Last month, Air New Zealand CEO Rob Fyfe delivered a blistering speech to the Green Skies conference in Hong Kong sponsored by Orient Aviation in which he lambasted the "bureaucratic circus," "interminable policy discussions" and "hand-wringing" over agreeing to emissions reduction targets. "To my mind," he continued, "the UN climate change discussions amplify all that is wrong with global politics. Whether under the [UNFCCC], ICAO or elsewhereit's the same procrastination; multiple conferences of many thousands; turgid presentations and inequitable albeit politically acceptable backroom deals . . . determining the shape of unwieldy global agreements at a glacial pace."

Fyfe probably spoke for a lot of frustrated airline people when he said he would be "happy to see a price on carbon," but that it should be applied "equitably" across geographies and industry sectors and should incentivize improvement and investment in new green technologies "rather than simply penalize all activity."

But therein lays the rub. Too many believe that penalizing economic activity and turning back the clock on human progress is the only solution to saving the planet. And politicians are only too happy to go along with this view publicly if it means they can refill the government coffers protected from a torrent of taxpayer outrage by a green umbrella. Our concern is that these are the voices that will shout the loudest in Copenhagen. When that happens, pointing to the future promise of a 2% improvement in fuel efficiency will not be enough.

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