Despite innovations — and efforts from airlines — we’re still far from clean flying.

Future of Flight: An OZY original series on what to expect when you next take to the skies.
Major airlines are using new aerodynamic devices like winglets, and experimenting with cleaner fuels to reduce their emissions.
Still, their total carbon footprint is increasing. The grounding of flights due to the pandemic will provide only a temporary respite.
When the Wright brothers first took flight back in 1903, it’s unlikely they considered that the industry would become notorious for pollution. Today, aviation is responsible for 12 percent of all carbon emissions in the transport sector, and 2 percent of overall global emissions.

The industry itself has emphasized in recent years its efforts at becoming carbon neutral. And indeed, several airlines have turned to more efficient engines and streamlined aircraft while also experimenting with alternative (and less polluting) fuels. That’s helping them reduce their carbon emissions per passenger, for each mile they fly.

But airlines — before the coronavirus pandemic temporarily stopped most air travel — were adding passengers and looking to take on more routes. As an industry, that pattern is expected to resume once the crisis passes, even though it might take a few years and several carriers might not survive. For those that grow once again, adding more passengers could wipe out any gains from their climate change initiatives, suggests recent research led by Susanne Becken, professor of sustainable tourism at Griffith University in Melbourne, and a member of the sustainability advisory panel at Air New Zealand.

EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THE WORLD’S 58 LARGEST AIRLINES INCREASED ITS TOTAL CARBON EMISSIONS BETWEEN 2017 AND 2018.
Collectively, these airlines increased their carbon footprint by 5.2 percent — with passengers flying 4.5 billion times during that time frame. It’s a stunning pointer to just how far the industry is from realizing its own emission targets.

In 2009, the International Air Transport Association, the global trade association for cargo and passenger air carriers, set the goal for airlines to turn carbon neutral (no increase in emissions) by 2020, and a 50 percent reduction in emissions by 2050.

Getting there though, will be a challenge, acknowledges Jacqueline Drumheller, a now-retired sustainability manager who spent 20 years with Alaska Airlines. In 2017-18, the company cut its per passenger emissions by 20 percent but still increased its total carbon footprint by 3 percent. “They’ve pretty much exhausted most of the efficiencies that they can do,” says Drumheller.

Spanish flag carrier Iberia reduced emissions per seat by 6 percent but increased absolute emissions by 8 percent. China’s Hainan Airlines reduced its emissions by 24 percent but increased absolute emissions by 45 percent, Becken’s research shows.  

If any airline shows a reduction in total emissions this year, that’ll only be because globally, more than 16,000 planes are grounded because of travel restrictions aimed at curbing the spread of the coronavirus. The impact of the lockdowns on the environment is already clear — and not just because of the aviation industry. “In California we’ve seen drops in pollutants in every county across the board,” says Caroline Parworth, sensor technologist at environmental intelligence firm Aclima.

Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.ozy.com