The aviation industry is “nowhere near where it needs to be” on decarbonisation and will not hit its carbon reduction targets.
That is according to Cait Hewitt, policy director at the Aviation Environment Federation (AEF), who told the Spain Sustainability Day conference in London: “Sustainable aviation is an aspiration not a reality.
“There are huge uncertainties as to whether it can be delivered.”
Hewitt argued: “The emissions from aviation should have been falling as the warnings from scientists have got worse. Instead, they have been growing.”
She told the conference, organised by the Spanish Tourist Office: “Environmental options for cutting emissions are scarcely off the drawing board. The sector is nowhere near where it needs to be. Anyone who offers a sustainable holiday to Spain needs to not sell a flight.”
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Industry efforts on decarbonisation up to 2050 are pinned largely on sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) replacing kerosene. But Hewitt pointed out: “SAF delivers no reduction in the amount of CO2 coming out of a aircraft.
“It can, in theory, reduce the overall CO2 in the atmosphere through carbon capture in the production process. It works really like a carbon offset.”
She added: “The idea we have massive feed stocks [for SAF production] is misleading. All the main sustainable feed stocks will be hard to scale up.”
Hewitt insisted: “Until ‘green’ flights exist, delivering ‘green’ tourism requires getting people to destinations in other ways. I know this is not an easy message, but responding to the climate emergency requires doing things differently.”
However, easyJet sustainability director Jane Ashton, argued: “We have to be realistic.”
She acknowledged frustration at “things not moving faster”, noting Tui operated a first flight with SAF 11 years ago when she was at the travel group “and there is not significantly more SAF being used today”.
But she pointed out 70 million tourists travelled to Spain last year and 60 million by air and said: “That is not going to reduce any time soon.
“We can’t switch all those on to rail. If they were to drive, environmentally that would be terrible.”
Ashton said: “SAF is not a panacea. SAF still emits carbon, but carbon is sequestered during the production. A huge amount of scientific research has gone into it and into whether sufficient feedstocks will be available. It looks like there will be.”
She added: “All airlines in the EU will have to uplift 2% SAF from 2025 and increase it in increments to 70% by 2050. That will drive SAF production.”
Ashton also noted: “We’ve seen some significant announcements on hydrogen [fuel] in the last few weeks. We’re working with Airbus on how to bring a 100% hydrogen-fuelled aircraft to commercial manufacture by 2035.”
Yet Hewitt responded: “Almost everyone agrees zero-emission aircraft will only operate short routes and the number operating by 2050 will be small.”
She accused the government and industry of “techno-optimism” and warned: “We will not hit our targets.
“The industry wants us to be optimistic about the capacity of technology to solve the problem. Why can’t we be optimistic about our capacity for social transformation, and reduce long-haul travel? We have to do something better than continuing as we are.”
EasyJet has developed a net zero pathway to 2050 which targets a 35% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2035 and to be ‘net zero’ by 2050.
Ashton said: “We have a forensic focus on operational things we can do. We’re increasingly confident hydrogen can be a transformative fuel for short-haul flying.”
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