It is amazing that such a high profile industry as air transport has been able to expand at such a dramatic rate without its effect on the environment being equally high profile among politicians and the media. The European Commission (EC), however, has just made clear that this is going to change.
Until now, in environmental and ecological terms, aviation has generated interest only at a local level - for example when an airport is to be expanded or a new one built. Then the local interests are out in force, unless it happens to be a developing region in which the airport represents greater prosperity.
Air transport is the world's fastest growing source of greenhouse gases. But when the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty supposed to define how nations will limit the generation of greenhouse gases, was drawn up, the assembly dumped the aviation file in the "too difficult" tray. Kyoto found that trying to deal with issues nation by nation was difficult enough. Aviation, because most of its operations are international, was impossible.
The EC has signalled that, if the international community will not provide the aviation industry with incentives to reduce noise and pollution, it intends to act unilaterally to do so.
Transport Commissioner Loyola de Palacio is a thoughtful leader who makes it clear that the Commission is not hostile to air transport; that where the imposition of environmental incentives is concerned the international agreement option is the first one; and that any measures unilaterally imposed - like fuel taxes - should not disadvantage European-based carriers.
The implication is that foreign carriers using European airspace will also be subject to "environmental incentives". If that is true then the current US/European "hushkits war" is going to look like a skirmish compared with the future conflict. At present, the favoured solution is an airspace user charge based on distance and a type-related pollution charge.
Aviation is set to keep expanding. That is a fact. It cannot, any more than any other transport mode, ignore environmental restraints. That is also a fact. Someone had to take the lead and, since it was never going to be the USA, it had to be Europe. It is now only a matter of time.
Meanwhile, it is not only right that the industry must do all it can to be more environmentally and ecologically efficient, but, if it does, it may benefit by delaying the onset of eco-charges, and it will certainly reduce them. Aviation has observed, as if from cruising height, the constraints faced by other transport modes. The altimeter may read 35,000ft, but aviation operates in the world, not above it.
Source: Flight International
