Europe on Green Air Trajectory

Europe wants to develop a new generation of green aircraft and it’s putting its money where its mouth is. The Clean Sky project is a new, €1.6bn program to carry out research in six key areas including wing technologies, low weight aircraft, rotor blades and engine installation for noise reduction and energy efficient engines.

The goal of the program is to make air travel more environmentally sustainable. Aircraft produce around 3% of all EU carbon emissions and experts forecast that they will account for 5% of global warming in 2050. The program will run for six years, and will include universities and research centers, and small and large industry.

While developing more environmentally-sustainable aviation technology is an admirable goal, there are things that the airline industry can do right now to help offset its carbon dioxide emissions. For instance, the UK government is looking at proposals to tax aircrafts according to weight and distance traveled. Environment minister Ian Pearson said he regards the predicted growth in airlines' carbon emissions such a threat to the government's plans to cut emissions by 60 percent by 2050 that he still wants the European Union to go further - and faster - to include airline emissions in its trading scheme. The EU has proposed including all flights within Europe in the carbon trading scheme from 2011 then, a year later, expanding the scope to cover all international flights that arrive at or depart from an EU airport.

Not only has the United States been resistant to imposing emissions taxes on airlines, but it recently threatened to take the EU to court over their proposed carbon tax (which would also affect U.S. airlines). By rejecting the Kyoto Protocol, the Bush administration set the tone for its environmental policies, and its attitude towards airline emissions taxes appears to be more of the same (shameful) approach. January 20, 2009 cannot come soon enough.