The time has come for the aviation industry to take a serious look at the effects of aircraft on global warming, executives attending this year’s air show say.

Carbon dioxide emissions from aircraft are a significant and growing contributor to harmful global warming. And it’s time for the aviation industry to sort it out, says Scott Carson, chief executive of Boeing’s commercial planes division.

Carson insists that the industry spends a lot on technology, on weight reduction and on improved efficiency — and thus, reduced emissions.

“Aircraft are 70 per cent more efficient than they were when they were first brought into the industry half a century ago,” he points out. However, any efforts to limit the damage caused to the environment by the aviation industry are really about making priorities, according to Bill Glover, managing director, environmental strategy, Boeing commercial planes division.

For instance, efforts to reduce noise pollution generally increase an aircraft’s weight and drag. This in turn pushes up fuel consumption and thus emissions, he explains.

Sometimes different interest groups collide, points out Jeanne Yu, environmental performance director, for Boeing’s commercial planes division.

“We don’t want to solve a local community’s noise problem at the cost of more fuel and thus a cost to the global community,” she explains.

With this in mind, quick fixes involving improvements to aircraft already in the air must be combined with more thorough, long-term solutions, points out  Glover.

Hence, it makes sense to make future aircraft from light composite materials, which require less energy to fly. Tomorrow’s planes — such as the Boeing 787 Dreamliner or the Airbus A350 — will also be made more efficient by both improved design and by better integration of different components.

But it can take decades for the current fleet of aircraft to be replaced by modern models.

“There are 17,000 planes out there already," says Glover. “To modify all of them would be impractical and take too long.”

Meanwhile, it is important to work with what is there, he insists. Improvements must be made, both to existing planes and to the way they are used. One way would be to develop new fuels, such as bio-fuels made from plants that could be used in existing aircraft, believes Glover, though beyond facilitating meetings, Boeing believes this is a matter between fuel suppliers and airlines.


“In the past, aircraft would fly with more empty seats than they do today,” says Glover. “The load-factor is going up,” he says, hence emissions per head have gone down.

New traffic control systems that allow for speedy take-offs and reduced in-flight waiting times, where aircraft circle, are also vital, adds Carson.

Aircraft makers are not about to stump up the cash, and neither are the airlines. Indeed, nobody appears eager to pick up the tab. Widespread disagreement about who should pay for efficiency improvements in the aerospace industry means they are moving forward at a pace far too slow to keep up with the rise in traffic.
BBC News