The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has issued new FlyNetZero update to shine a light on the global airline industry’s efforts on the journey to reaching Net Zero emissions by 2050.
The latest IPCC report highlighted that nascent carbon removal efforts will become crucial for the aviation sector to reach net-zero emissions. In its AR6 Synthesis Report, the UN body said that “sustainable biofuels, low-emissions hydrogen, and derivatives (including ammonia and synthetic fuels) can support mitigation of CO2 emissions” in the transport sector – a view shared by the airlines in their focus on sustainable aviation fuels.
Reinforcing the industry’s push for critical political support, the report says that “production process improvements and cost reductions” are important to encourage the wide adoption of sustainable fuels needed for aviation to help limit the projected rise in global temperatures. In addition, the report notes that even with a wide adoption of SAF, “some hard-to-abate residual GHG emissions remain and would need to be counterbalanced by deployment of carbon dioxide removal methods to achieve net-zero CO2 or GHG”. This makes it clear that carbon removal will be a critical necessity for the industry, as indicated in IATA’s Net Zero strategy where emissions that cannot be eliminated at source will be taken out through out-of-sector options such as carbon capture and storage and credible offsetting schemes…
