Aviation

What is the ‘Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation’ (CORSIA)?

Unlike other sectors, international aviation is not included in 2015’s Paris Agreement, nor was it included in the Paris Agreement’s predecessor, the Kyoto Protocol – as these agreements are made up of commitments from individual countries, and international aviation emissions do not occur within any country’s borders. As a result, international aviation has for many years lagged behind other sectors when it comes to reducing emissions. If international aviation continues to grow at current rates, by 2050 it would make up nearly a quarter of global greenhouse gas emission.

In face of mounting criticism, the international aviation sector – via its specialised UN agency, the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) – has come up with a plan which it says will reduce its climate impact.

In October 2016, ICAO adopted the ‘Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation’ (CORSIA), which claims to ensure “carbon neutral growth from 2020”. CORSIA relies heavily on carbon offsetting, the controversial approach that allows emitters such as airlines to continue burning fossil fuels and still claim “carbon neutrality” – as long as they pay someone else to prevent emissions elsewhere.

The attractiveness of carbon offsetting is obvious – it is cheap – and it allows business as usual to continue. But carbon offsets have faced serious criticism about their actual impact on climate change – particularly when it comes to forest offsets, which are notoriously difficult to measure and impossible to guarantee. Forest offsets have also come under fire for threatening the land rights and livelihoods of local communities.

Can biofuels be used to decarbonise aviation?

The aviation industry continues to promote the idea that biofuels are the long-term solution, but evidence to date brings all future production scenarios and sustainability issues seriously into doubt. Disruptive alternative fuels could offer lower scalability and sustainability obstacles than biofuels, but still need a considerable amount of research and development. While that work continues, policy must ensure that past mistakes on biofuels are not repeated in the aviation sector.

Main concerns include:

1. Most biofuels increase greenhouse gas emissions
2. Large-scale bioenergy cultivation is highly land intensive and a threat to people and the environment
3. Sustainability is more than climate change
4. Reliance on biofuels takes attention away from more promising solutions

Read more about biofuels

Can we keep flying and still achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement?

Aviation is one of only two sectors worldwide with no existing United Nations’ (UN) targets to reduce emissions. The UN International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) has put forward a proposal to deal with climate change which foresees emissions increasing by between 300-700 per cent by 2050.

More than 90 organisations have come together to denounce ICAO’s plans to offset emissions on the grounds that it will push global warming beyond 1.5° Celsius (the Paris Climate Agreement goal).

They call on ICAO to reduce emissions now and to exclude forest and soil carbon offsets as a first step. We need to reduce aviation emissions AND protect forests, not one or the other.

Read their declaration.