Airlines fighting climate change look to technology to become more sustainable, avoid flight bans and achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050
- The aviation industry, already battered by the pandemic, must now deal with another problem: its contribution to climate breakdown
- Technology holds some answers, but a massive investment in infrastructure and aircraft design will be needed, and soon
As aviation struggles to emerge from a pandemic-driven downturn, another, longer-term challenge already looms. Concern about air travel’s contribution to climate breakdown threatens to curtail its growth after decades of expansion that has shrunk the world for travellers and connected the global economy.
The airline industry, contending with growing political pressure for new restrictions on flying, this month formally committed to a target of “net zero” carbon emissions by 2050. To achieve that, governments and industry will have to invest billions of dollars in infrastructure in the coming decade. Further out, Boeing and Airbus will have to develop dramatically new aircraft designs.
For the flying public, all outcomes point to an increase in the cost of flying. Yet that distant net-zero emissions target is so radical, and the proposed technology solutions so uncertain, that aviation risks falling far short.
Airbus chief executive Guillaume Faury recently warned that if the industry’s new push for climate sustainability fails, governments could force a reduction in air travel by banning some of the flying that is routine today.
“Aviation has a very important role on the planet to connect people and to contribute to prosperity,” he said at a two-day aviation sustainability summit convened by Airbus in France last month. “This is in danger if we don’t manage to transition and succeed in the decarbonisation of the sector.”