How Can Aviation Usher in a "Low Emissions Age”?
The aviation industry is running out of time to deploy carbon-mitigation tools, such as sustainable aviation fuel, as consumers are increasingly demanding that airlines act today.
The aviation industry is running out of time to deploy carbon-mitigation tools, such as sustainable aviation fuel, and consumers are increasingly demanding that airlines take action today. The short window in which to act poses a risk that the sector will fail to hit its goal to halve CO2 emissions by 2050 relative to 2005, Shell’s top climate adviser has warned.
“The timeline that's been laid out by the science community is relatively short now because we've had decades of not doing enough collectively as society and so the time we've got left to actually do something is diminishing rapidly,” said David Hone, Chief Climate Adviser for Shell.
“And it's diminishing now to the point at which it's hitting up against the minimum commercial time that you need to get these big processes up and running and so that means that there is no opportunity left for delay. It's as simple as that,” Hone said in a recent interview with Joel Makower, Editor-in-Chief of Greenbiz.com.
Watch: Powering sustainable flight for the next generation
Key takeaways
The aviation industry is at risk of not delivering on its goal to cut net emissions to half of 2005 levels by 2050.
Airlines that take a wait-and-see approach to their climate impact risk being caught up in backlash from consumers and politicians frustrated with perceived inaction.
The industry has committed to cutting net emissions to half of 2005 levels within 30 years, and the challenge is a big one. While electric cars are already rolling down the world’s roads, electric passenger planes are not expected to be widely deployed for decades. In the meantime, the industry will have to deploy a number of measures and tools, including sustainable aviation fuels (SAF), carbon offsets, and incremental technological and operational efficiencies.
SAF in particular is seen as key for the industry to meet its carbon goals. Yet SAF production was only about 4 million gallons last year – just 0.1% of total aviation fuel production. That could rise to 10% in 2030 and 20% by 2040, according to forecasts by the International Energy Agency.
A sleeping giant stirs
Airlines that take a wait-and-see approach risk being caught up in backlash from consumers and politicians frustrated with perceived inaction, Hone said.
“First of all, there's the simple physics of the climate issue. The climate is starting to change and that's bringing about cost to society and therefore social and political pressures to reduce emissions. That's real and that's happening today,” Hone said. “And it's not just the climate itself, which is already starting to shift, but it's people's recognition that this shift is underway and their desire to want to see changes made to limit that shift.”
“It's the customer that is really going to be one of the driving forces in this process. These customers, today, I think, represent a sleeping giant. They're starting to wake up and recognize that air travel has sustainability issues associated with it.”
David Hone, Chief Climate Adviser for Shell“Nobody in the long-term will invest in an unsustainable business”
Climate sustainability is business sustainability
Scrutiny is also starting to come from investors and other stakeholders in the business who recognize the risk of not managing emissions.
“Nobody in the long-term will invest in an unsustainable business,” Hone said.
Social attitudes are already shifting, whether it’s the “flight shame” movement that started in Sweden, Blackrock making sustainability one of the fundamentals of businesses it invests in, and a growing chorus of climate-related commitments from companies such as Amazon, Delta Airlines, and Microsoft.
“There are real leading indicators out there that something is happening,” Hone said. “But it didn't exist two or three years ago and it's moving rapidly.”
Hone said the likelihood was growing that the mounting social concerns over climate will spur politicians and governments into actions to curb emissions growth.
“And that could set another trend, a legislative trend that becomes very hard to manage and very difficult to address. It's much better to do this on terms that you can manage yourself, on programs that you can implement yourself, and implement with your partners.”.
How does SAF help to decarbonise air travel?
David Hone, Shell
David Hone joined Shell in 1980 after graduating as a Chemical Engineer from the University of Adelaide in South Australia, initially working as a refinery engineer before becoming the supply economist at the Shell refinery in Sydney. In 1989, he transferred to London to work for Shell Trading and held a number of senior positions in that organisation until taking up his current role as Chief Climate Change Adviser in 2001. David is also Board Member and former Chair of the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA), a global business organisation of some 130 companies.
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