Unit 2 - Task 4 - the one about preparing a presentation

"You have to each make a short presentation about some topic related to our unit (Travelling, tourism, living abroad, free time activities, sports), of about 5-10 minutes for our next class."

The seed for this presentation was planted while watching the first video Manolo posited on "The future of Tourism".

In that video Johan Lundgren, CEO of easyJet, makes some fantastic assertions about aviation in general:

"the mid 90s airline deregulation [...] has allowed millions and millions of 'ordinary' people to take advantage of air travel, previously there only for wealthy and privileged people"

"we (easyJet) are offsetting all the carbon emissions for the fuel we are are using"

"we need to get on to zero emissions aircraft, and that is now within sight"

"we (Airlines for Europe) have set out a roadmap on how to decarbonise aviation by 2050 in a very credible roadmap, but of course we are gonna need also the support and the funding from the governments to get onto that and not only through penalties that actually makes travel out of reach for the millions of people who are just starting to enjoy this"

"People should fly and travel more, and it's up to us as an industry together with authorities to make sure that we reduce our impact on the environment"

And that got me thinking: Should I believe him? Is really the aviation industry doing their best to meet the net-zero emissions goal by 2050?

So, firstly, let's visit the IATA (International Air Transport Association) web site and find their climate change pages.  We see immediately that they have passed a resolution earlier this year, in October, that commits all member airlines to achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Yay! Hurrah!

However, there is no data whatsoever on that page on the extent of the problem caused by the industry.

Anyway, they seem to have a four point plan to get to that goal:

1. SAF
2. New aircraft technology
3. Operational and infrastructure efficiency
4. Carbon offsetting

and that is it! problem solved!

That is also the 'credible roadmap' that the CEO of easyJet was referring to in that earlier mentioned video.

Let's have a look at the first point: SAF.

SAF stands for Sustainable Aviation Fuel and IATA has a page on that too.

In that page IATA claims that SAF can reduce emissions by up to 80% during its lifecycle.

It also claims that since 2016, over 370,000 flights have used SAF and that 100M litres of SAF will be produced in 2021.

By the way, since 2016 (to 2020) there have been approximately 165M flights, so 370,000 flights represent about 0.22% of the total flights, but they don't mention that.

In page 26 of the IATA Annual Review 2021 it says:

"Elevating the production capacity for SAF is therefore a priority for airlines. Current levels are too low, at around 0.02% of global demand, to significantly lessen emissions or to generate the economies of scale necessary to reduce costs to competitive levels. But production is beginning to increase dramatically. Within 2021, IATA anticipates the production and use of between 100 million and 120 million liters of SAF—an increase of more than 50% on 2020.

Numerous additional SAF production facilities will come online over the next four years, such that by 2025 approximately five billion liters of SAF could be available. That would meet around 2% of global demand. By 2030, projections are for SAF availability to increase to cover at least 5% of demand globally.

Meeting and exceeding projections for SAF cannot be the responsibility of SAF producers and the aviation industry alone. Governments need to set in place supportive policy frameworks."

And it continues talking an EU mandate to airlines to cut emissions:

"But whereas a mandate sends a useful signal to investors, on its own it is not an efficient way to promote SAF unless accompanied by a comprehensive package of incentives, such as tax breaks, financial subsidies, and public-private partnerships."

So, it looks like the aviation industry is asking for the public sector to 'support' their SAF efforts to cut emissions, but not to tax them (nor the passengers) to pay for that 'support'.

But, is really SAF the magic pill they make it out to be?

SAF as a fuel is just a circular biofuel, a fuel not made directly from fossil fuels, but from agricultural and/or waste products, like used cooking oil. It is worth noting that SAF is not a completely clean fuel, as it does still produce carbon (and others) emissions when burned on a plane engine. But, since it is created using 'carbon taken from the atmosphere', IATA claim that it will help reduce the net carbon emissions by 80%.

What they don't say if that it costs over 4 times more than conventional Jet A (aka aviation kerosene) to produce. Every single step of the production of SAF is more expensive than conventional Jet A. And there is also the problem of increasing the production. There is not enough waste to produce the aviation fuel requirement. And producing it from agricultural produce would mean using more land for crops to produce SAF, at a time when land for agriculture is becoming a bit more scarce.

In a few words. It is not economically or environmentally sustainable to produce.

According to IATA's own figures, SAF makes up about 0.02% of the fuel available to the market.

Assuming that there is no growth in the aviation industry, which is highly unlikely, the 5 billion liters of SAF by 2025 would cover about 1.25% of aviation fuel demand (not 2% as they claim). And that is assuming that 5 billion liters could possibly be produced (it would mean a 4900% increase in production compared to 2021 in just 4 years).

In any case, it is just a drop in the ocean. It is commendable, but not a credible proposal.

So, what about the second point? New Aircraft Technology.

The ultimate goal of electric passenger planes is yet a dream. Of course electric planes do exist. But they are all very small, and only for short trips. Currently too short even for short-haul flights.

The problem is of course batteries. The energy density of batteries is too low compared to traditional Jet A fuel. For a commercial plane to have the same energy available from batteries, it would have to carry almost 50 times the weight of Jet A fuel in Li-ion batteries. Simply impossible.

According to IATA website, the earliest we could expect a commercial electric plane would be 2035. In my opinion a very optimistic date. And that would be for short-haul flights. Ocean crossing electric planes still remain a dream.

The third point in the plan ... Operational and infrastructure efficiency.

Of course, by all means! But, by their own admission, that might have a mere 3% impact on carbon emissions.

So, I am just going to ignore it.

Lastly, the final point in the plan. Carbon Offsetting.

We all know how Carbon Offsetting works. You keep pumping CO2 to the atmosphere, but pay someone else to not do it.

We could discuss ad nauseum the politics and merits of carbon offsetting, and its many pitfalls. But, let me use an analogy I saw recently on YouTube:

Imagine you tell your husband or wife that you will be Infidelity Offsetting. Meaning, you will keep on merrily cheating on them, but will pay one of your neighbours not to cheat on his or her partner.

That is carbon offsetting in a nutshell.

So, in short, the aviation industry is trying to fool everyone, even themselves, into believing that they have found the magical solutions to the problem of carbon emissions, and because of that they can continue growing and expanding year on year.

Those magical solutions should be paid for, in great part, by all of us.

Of course. All current airline CEOs will not be working by 2030, let alone 2050, so it will be someone else's problem. And they can always blame governments for not providing enough support!

It is all just a greenwashing exercise. Talk some green language and pretend you care.