Claims that sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) will substantially reduce the environmental impact of flying are “detached from reality” and “absolute greenwash”.
That is according to Matt Finch, UK policy manager for Brussels-based group Transport & Environment, who argues aviation increasingly “sticks out like a sore thumb” for its failure to act sooner on decarbonisation, having failed “to get its act together” years ago.
Finch told Travel Weekly: “SAF is portrayed as a global silver bullet. But SAF is 0.1% of aviation fuel. The amount of SAF talked about it is so detached from reality. It’s absolute greenwash.”
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He argued that to produce the volume of SAF required by airlines: “We would need to turn over 30% of all renewable-fuel capacity to aviation. But that renewable-fuel capacity was set up for road transport.
“If you turn it over to aircraft, less will go to road transport – so as aviation CO2 falls, road CO2 will rise.
Finch suggested: “The same arguments are playing out in aviation now as in road transport in the late 2000s. Then it was, ‘It’s impossible to decarbonise cars, so let’s decarbonise the fuel’.
“If aviation had got its act together 15 years ago, it would have the renewable-fuel capacity now.”
The EU has set a mandate for 6% of aviation fuel to be SAF by 2030, and the UK is pledged to a SAF mandate of 10% by 2030.
Finch noted: “The SAF mandates fall on fuel suppliers which have to deliver these percentages regardless of what the airlines do.”
He also hit out at global aviation emissions trading scheme (ETS) Corsia, set up by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), calling it “rubbish”.
Finch argued: “Global carbon pricing is a good idea. [But] Corsia only covers growth in emissions above 85% of the 2019 level, so it only tackles the future problem not the existing one.
“Not all countries are in the scheme [Russia, China and India are outside] and it only runs till 2035.
“But the biggest issue is the credits. The costs are way lower than the EU and UK ETSs. The Corsia carbon price is about £1 a tonne versus £50-£100 in Europe. It’s absolutely pointless.”
He also noted: “The UK and EU schemes only apply in Europe, so 70% of aviation emissions are not in an ETS scheme at all.”
Finch welcomed the recent Advertising Standards Authority rulings against Air France, Lufthansa and Etihad over misleading environmental claims, saying: “We’ve said for ages these sustainability claims don’t add up.” (Travel Weekly, December 14). But he argued: “Airlines may tighten their language, but nothing has changed.
“Airlines are buying new more efficient aircraft but flying more. Industry emissions are going up.”
However, Finch suggested the aviation industry and air travellers could still look to the future with some optimism, arguing that hydrogen could provide the alternative fuel the sector needs.
He said: “We have the first hydrogen fuel cells in aircraft now.
“No one thinks hydrogen-fuelled planes will be flying large numbers of people within 25 years. But we said the same about road transport and we were all wrong.”