BALPA ENVIRONMENTAL TARGETS Well, this is really not the reaction I expected. I thought there would be some dissent, some lively questioning, some disbelief even. But the impression I get from the 100 or so faces looking up at me is more of a stunned silence. The occasion is the 2021 Annual Delegates Conference BALPAs big gettogether, featuring all the company councils, staff, executive council, and other allies and grandees. The talk I have just delivered, titled Aviations Biggest Challenge, was a summary of the environmental targets our industry faces and how they might be achieved. Our central message was simply this: massive change is coming. Not just driven by environmental pressure groups or public opinion, but also by hugely ambitious and legally binding government targets. Meeting these targets will require unprecedented investment, incredibly rapid technological change and a fundamental rethink of how we operate. The challenge is achievable just but the road ahead will be painful and expensive. Failing to meet the targets could be even worse, with the spectre of forced downsizing threatening the sector generally, and our careers specifically. In a nutshell, a sustainable future is the only future the aviation industry has, and cleaning up our act will be our licence to continue. Our emissions targets To understand what our industry is being asked to achieve and why, we need to take a few steps back to 2015, when the UNs Paris Agreement was struck. This deal bound 191 countries, plus the EU, to do whatever is needed to limit global warming to 2C, with a target of 1.5C. It was left up to each member state to decide how to contribute to this goal, and each declared its intent by filing a Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), which they are expected to update periodically. The UK government filed its most recent NDC in December 20201, committing itself to a 68% cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2035, compared with a 1990 baseline. While this still did not include emissions from international shipping and aviation, it did set out the intent and mechanism to include them in the future. We did not have to wait long; in June 2021, Parliament amended the Environment Act to introduce into law a new carbon budget with an even more stretching target of a 78% reduction by 2035 and 100% or net zero by 20502. Importantly for us, aviation was explicitly included in this target and expected to be achieved in sector. So, there it is in black and white. In 1990, UK aviation was responsible for approximately 21 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions per year, but by 2018 this had grown to 38 million3. We now have just 13 years to somehow reduce it to less than five million tonnes and a further 15 years to eliminate it completely. The roadmap to net zero Having established what we need to achieve, let us focus on the hows. At face value, the target sounds impossible. Aviation is far more difficult to decarbonise than surface transport, power generation or, indeed, pretty much any ground-based industry, simply because no known technology comes close to the effectiveness of liquid carbon-based fuels coupled to modern jet engines. However, dont overlook the word net in net zero. We dont necessarily have to reduce or eliminate tailpipe emissions to achieve our targets although this is clearly desirable as the rules allow future emissions to be played off against reduction measures elsewhere. These could include carbon-offset schemes, such as tree planting or renewable energy generation, although such schemes have a patchy record and will become harder to find as other sectors go green. More likely, we will be forced to rely on unproven technologies to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide levels directly by capture and storage. Second, we have not been handed this target and just left to get on with it; the UK government is preparing a detailed strategy detailing exactly how we might reach net zero: Jet Zero. This strategy has already gone through the consultation stages, to which BALPA contributed significantly. We expect publication early this year, quite possibly by the time this article is published. While I cant be sure of the exact details to be published in Jet Zero, I can offer some educated guesses. The likely strategy is best summed up by the graph below, which is taken directly from the consultation document and annotated rather amateurishly by me. This diagram, or roadmap, shows the different arsenal we can bring to bear against our carbon emissions and how they combine. Despite the title High ambition, this roadmap actually represents the most conservative of three scenarios presented, the others requiring rather unlikely breakthroughs in either fuel supply or aircraft design. The top of the dark blue band represents business as usual the emissions we would expect if we made no particular effort to reduce them while simultaneously expecting traffic to grow naturally. Each colour band represents a different mitigation measure. Together, all these measures combine to result in the emissions indicated by the bottom of the green band. Scenario 2: High ambition carbon pricing efficiency Short-term COVID-19 uncertainty 60 50 30 20 10 21 Mt CO2 2 Mt CO2 8 Mt CO2 SAF electric 21 Mt CO2 Residual emissions to offset or remove 2050 2048 2046 2044 2042 2040 2038 2036 2034 2032 2030 2028 2026 2024 2022 2020 2018 0 2016 Mt CO2 40 5 Mt CO2 2035 Despite the title High ambition, this roadmap actually represents the most conservative of three scenarios presented in the governments Jet Zero strategy The dark blue carbon pricing band refers to the expected demand reduction because of higher ticket prices as a result of the UK Emissions Trading Scheme (UK ETS). This system sets an overall carbon emission cap for the UK economy. Companies must buy allowances to emit up to the cap, with pricing left to the open market. After a slow start, this is now starting to bite. The current price is 85 per tonne of CO2, which would add up to about 260 to a tonne of Jet A14. UK airlines are not yet fully exposed to these costs, as they currently enjoy significant free allowances. However, these will be removed over time, while the cap reduces at 5% per year so expect fuel costs to climb significantly. This is without the additional costs that may come as a result of the war in Ukraine. The light-blue efficiencies band refers to the combined effects of dozens of ongoing operational improvements, from better engines through to improved ATC procedure design and green ops, such as single-engine taxi. The authors have assumed an annual 2% improvement, although we feel this may be unrealistic; the long-term trend is closer to 1.5%. The green band refers to emissions savings through sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs). These low-carbon fuels can directly replace and be blended with fossil kerosene without any change to the aircraft or fuel-delivery system, so are a clear favourite for near-term carbon savings. They can be made from various precursors including waste oils, crops and municipal waste. The greenest option is to chemically synthesise them using hydrogen from electrolysed seawater and carbon dioxide from a waste stream or direct air extraction, powering the whole process with (a great deal of) renewable electricity. The downside is cost SAFs are currently between two and five times the price of fossil kerosene. This ratio is expected to fall as production scales up and the taxes on fossil fuel start to bite. Finally, the narrow black band, representing the contribution from electrically propelled aircraft, reveals an inconvenient truth: this technology, along with hydrogen fuel, is unlikely to make any worthwhile impact before 2035, as the timeline is simply too short. Below the green band remains a large white area representing the residual carbon emissions that have not been mitigated; this amount has to be somehow offset to achieve net zero. You can also see a slight increase in emissions expected between 2024 and 2028. This is because traffic is being forecast to continue expanding while the various mitigation measures take some time to kick in. Low-carbon fuels can directly replace and be blended with fossil kerosene without any change to the aircraft or fuel-delivery system Across the Channel Despite the UKs departure from the EU and EASA, its reasonable to assume that our sustainability measures will be compatible with and broadly similar to that of our neighbours, so its informative to keep an eye on what our friends in the EU are planning with their Fit for 55 package5. The EU also has an emissions trading scheme, but it is expected to go further, with a direct tax on jet fuel. Member states are likely to be required to levy this tax from 2023, initially at a nominal rate, but rising to at least 450 euros per tonne by 2030. We also anticipate a new sustainable fuel-blending mandate, probably starting at 2% blend and rising to 10% by 2030. To prevent operators from simply flying in cheap fossil fuel from outside the EU, a ban on economic fuel tankering is highly probable. Indeed, the UK government recently consulted on its own SAF blending mandate, and the outcome, expected later this year, will probably follow similar lines. Its not all about the carbon There is no doubt that CO2 is causing the lions share of global warming and, for many ground-based industries, that is pretty much the whole story. But for aviation, research indicates that the picture is both more concerning and more nuanced. The aim of the Paris Agreement is not to reduce CO2 emissions per se, but rather to limit global temperature increase. Experts now tell us that CO2 emissions are not the only contributor to global warming from flying in fact, it is not even the biggest factor. Surprisingly, our worst offender is Aviation Induced Cloudiness (AIC) the phenomenon where soot and particulates from jet engines can in specific atmospheric conditions trigger the formation of new layers of cirrus cloud. These act like a blanket, reflecting vast amounts of heat back to the surface (see article The Cold Blue in the autumn 2021 edition of The Log). Other pollutants that cause nearly as much warming as our CO2 are the nitrogen oxides (NOx) formed during combustion. The picture is complex, but, ultimately, they act to slow down the natural degradation of atmospheric methane, itself a powerful greenhouse gas. While uncertainty over the exact figures remains, it does appear we are causing nearly three times as much global warming as our CO2 figures alone would suggest, making aviation compare even more unfavourably with surface transport. Some of this can be mitigated fairly easily. AIC can be largely prevented by simply avoiding super-saturated areas, while recent research shows SAFs can and should help by significantly reducing the particulates emitted. NOx emissions, which are currently only regulated in the take-off and landing phase, could be reduced in the cruise by improved engine design given the appropriate financial incentives. Awareness of the importance of non-CO2 effects is growing, although it remains to be seen whether or not the Jet Zero strategy tackles them effectively. Fear of the unknown While Jet Zero sets a tough, but attainable, goal and outlines a way to reach it, there is, to my mind, a major omission. Simply what happens to our industry if we fail to reach our targets? The consultation is silent on this matter, but there has to be a pretty big stick involved somewhere, given the vast investment being called for by the government. This stick could simply be a financial one, but bear in mind the government has control over airport slots and airspace, giving it the power to forcibly reduce traffic to bring down emissions not a situation any of us want to see. If you have doubts that the UK government would forcibly shrink a profitable sector for purely environmental reasons, look no further than North Sea oil. Here, there is already a well-developed transition plan to retrain workers and shift the sector away from extraction towards carbon storage and renewable energy generation6. Looking ahead I hope in this article I have managed to express just how immense the challenge is that faces us, and that, for aviation, going green is no longer a choice, but a legal requirement. I hope, too, that you agree the best path for BALPA is to embrace the challenge, engage with the transition process at all levels and push the industry to meet or exceed the targets we have been set. This way, we can avoid any more shocked silence moments and help to secure a healthy future for aviation and our own careers. BALPA is one of the first member associations in the world to publish its own comprehensive environmental position paper. References 1 www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-uks-nationally-determinedcontribution-communication-to-the-unfccc 2w ww.gov.uk/government/news/uk-enshrines-new-target-in-law-to-slashemissions-by-78-by-2035 3 www.theccc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Sector-summary-Aviation.pdf 4 uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/high-prices-trigger-january-uk-072859276.html 5w ww.eurocontrol.int/article/eus-fit-55-package-what-does-it-mean-aviation 6 www.gov.uk/government/publications/north-sea-transition-deal