IATA Adopts Agreement on Carbon-Neutral Growth

The International Air Transport Association (IATA), which represents some 240 airlines in 118 countries, recently adopted a new agreement aimed at carbon-neutral growth using reductions in fuel usage and other efficiencies, combined with a single market-based measure (MBM) as needed. ALPA has long advocated greater fuel efficiency through better technology and safe procedures as the means for further reducing the very small share of man-made greenhouse gases produced by aviation.

IATA’s 69th Annual General Meeting (AGM) overwhelmingly endorsed a resolution on “Implementation of the Aviation Carbon-Neutral Growth (CNG2020) Strategy.”

The resolution provides governments with a set of principles on how governments could:

• Establish procedures for a single MBM
• Integrate a single MBM as part of an overall package of measures to achieve CNG2020

IATA believes that the aviation industry urgently needs governments to agree, through ICAO, with a global approach to managing aviation’s carbon emissions, including a single global MBM. IATA member airlines agreed that a single mandatory carbon offsetting scheme would be the simplest and most effective option for an MBM.

A summary of the principles of the resolution includes the following:

• Setting the industry and individual carrier baselines using the average annual total emissions over the period 2018–2020;
• Agreeing to provisions/adjustments for

o Recognizing early movers, benchmarked for 2005–2020 with a sunset by 2025
o Accommodating new market entrants for their initial years of operation
o Fast growing carriers

• Adopting an equitable balance for determining individual carrier responsibilities that includes consideration of:

o An ‘emissions share’ element (reflecting the carrier’s share of total industry emissions) and
o A post-2020 ‘growth’ element (reflecting the carrier’s growth above baseline emissions)

• Reporting and verification of carbon emissions that is:

o Based on a global standard to be developed by ICAO
o Simple and scalable based on the size and complexity of the operator

• Instituting a periodic CNG2020 performance review cycle that revises individual elements and parameters as appropriate