New progress on aircraft CO2 Standard

Global aviation moved an important step closer to establishing a worldwide CO2 Standard for aircraft yesterday, as the International Civil Aviation Organization’s (ICAO’s) Committee on Aviation Environmental Protection (CAEP) unanimously agreed on a CO2 metric system which characterizes the CO2 emissions for aircraft types with varying technologies.

“The new CO2 metric system agreed today by States, as well as intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, addresses emissions from a wide variety of aircraft on a fair and transparent basis,” stressed ICAO Council President, Roberto Kobeh González. “It includes factors which account for fuselage geometry, maximum take-off weight and fuel burn performance at three different cruise conditions and is a major move forward.”

The CAEP agreement on the new aircraft CO2 metric system will allow the States and observer organizations that together comprise the CAEP to move onto the next stages in the development of an ICAO CO2 aircraft Standard. This work includes the definition of certification procedures to support the agreed metric system and the Standard’s scope of applicability.

An appropriate regulatory limit for the aircraft CO2 Standard will then be analyzed, using the ICAO criteria of technical feasibility, environmental benefit, cost effectiveness and the impacts of interdependencies.

“This metric system is a very important milestone which comes after extensive technical discussions,” commented ICAO’s Environment Branch Chief, Jane Hupe. “That ICAO was able to achieve consensus between the States who serve on the CAEP, in addition to the major airlines, aircraft manufacturers, environmental NGOs and other stakeholders who serve as observers to this process, highlights that there is a great deal of motivation in every quarter of our sector to achieve real progress on aviation environmental performance.”