The US Federal Aviation Administration continues to insist on an environmental aviation policy that is all-encompassing, driven by consensus and based on "better" scientific understanding.
In the short term, it seeks to use the environmental issue as leverage to boost support for a proposed financing scheme to modernise the US air traffic management system - the NextGen plan.
Although the increase in air traffic that would inevitably result from more capacity would mean an absolute increase in greenhouse gas emissions, the FAA links the issue to the environment because overall the system would function up to 12% more efficiently than it does today.
The agency has also partnered NASA to invest over the next five years in developing better scientific tools to understand environmental issues at a holistic level.
The goal is to achieve a level of scientific knowledge that will allow policy makers to measure the impact of a new environmental policy on all aspects of aviation, including emissions, safety, operations, airline finances and public health.
In the longer run, the FAA approach to environmental management would rely on industry to continue a track record of introducing steadily more fuel-efficient aircraft and engine technology.
There is also hope that a recent push to develop viable alternative fuels to power civil aircraft would also reduce overall emissions after about 2020.
No urgency
"Our goals are better science, better aircraft technologies, improved operations and alternative fuels," FAA administrator Marion Blakey told an audience recently.
Whereas the European Union seeks to single out climate change for immediate action, US policy is predicated on "managing all the environmental impacts of the system", Carl Burleson, director of the office of environment and energy recently told Flight International.
The FAA simply sees no urgency to addressing the climate change problem at a quicker pace than addressing, for example, noise levels or local air quality.
Burleson says: "We're burning less fuel today than we did in 2000. [Climate change is] certainly the immediate issue given that performance."
This view is in sharp contrast to the prevailing mood in Europe, where policymakers have elevated the issue of climate change to an overriding principle and have made the aviation industry a target for making reforms.
John Douglass, executive director of the Aerospace Industries Association and a staunch supporter of the FAA's environmental approach, says the difference in philosophy reflects the socioeconomic divide between air travel in the USA and Europe.
"In the USA, air travel has become egalitarian. Everybody flies," he says. "In Europe there is still sort of a class issue embedded in this. So it's not surprising that the EU approach would be different than the USA."
But the FAA officials remain concerned that the relatively speedy movement in Europe on the climate change issue could erupt in the USA, with aviation again put in a corner by policymakers.
In a recent speech, Blakey cited a recent opinion poll showing that only 5% of US domestic airline officials consider the environment to be a serious long-term issue.
Shrinking boundaries
"One thing is for sure: this shift in the European view toward aviation happened virtually overnight. We should not be so foolish as to presume that it can't happen here," Blakey said.
FAA officials say they could eventually consent to a trading scheme on carbon emissions for airlines, but the rules would have to be governed at the level of the International Civil Aviation Organisation, and the financial burden of such schemes must be "cost-effective".
"We have the opportunity to use aviation to continue to shrink the boundaries of our world, even as we reduce its environmental footprint," Blakey says. "All of that said, we need to do more."
Source: Flight International
