When will flying be carbon neutral?

https://www.klimatsmart.se/images/news/zeromission-claire-wigg150x191.jpg

For many of us air travel contributes significantly to our carbon footprints. The average footprint for a European person is around 10 tons CO2 – from food, heating, commuting, electricity, travel etc – yet one round trip to New York has a greenhouse gas effect of 2-3 tons CO2 per person. And all the signs are that air travel will continue to increase, with the EU predicting a 70% increase in emissions between 2005 and 2020, even with continued fuel efficiency measures. One of the seminars during last week’s Sustainability Day in Göteborg sought to answer the question “is carbon neutral flying possible?” Swedavia, which runs ten airports in Sweden, is aiming for zero emissions by 2020. But airports’ contributions are a drop in the ocean: Swedavia’s airports have net emissions of less than 5000 tons per year, and global emissions from aviation are at nearing 700 million tons per year. More interesting is the possibility of replacing fossil fuels with biofuels. Researchers around the world are currently working on 13 different ways to produce aviation fuel from biomass and it is hoped that one of these will be widely available to the industry by 2035. But biomass requires land or sea and the possible competition with food will have to be addressed. Last year the aviation industry set out a roadmap for reducing total emissions from 2020, and halving them by 2050. Whilst ambitious, these goals do not imply any absolute reduction in emissions until at least 2030 and thereafter the goal is only to halve emissions. So, sadly, carbon neutral flying is still a very long way off. /Claire Wigg, ZeroMission