The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) reaffirmed its commitment to industry-wide decarbonization and its long-term goal of achieving net zero emissions by 2050 last week at its Third Conference on Aviation and Alternative Fuels (CAAF/3).
At the Dubai event, the organization adopted a new global framework on the acceptance of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), lower carbon aviation fuels (LCAF), and other greener energy sources as it and its member states agreed to a goal of reducing CO2 emissions in international aviation by 5 percent by 2030, compared with non-use of these fuels.
This follows last year's agreement at the ICAO Triennial Assembly, which set long-term industry goals of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 and encouraged increased investment in SAF production.
“The role of the framework is to facilitate the scale-up of the development and deployment of SAF, LCAF, and other aviation cleaner energies on a global basis, and mainly by providing greater clarity, consistency, and predictability to all stakeholders, including those beyond the aviation sector,” explained ICAO council president Salvatore Sciacchitano. “Investors, governments, and others all need greater certainty regarding the policies, regulations, implementation support, and investments required so that all countries will have an equal opportunity to contribute to and benefit from the expansion in the production and use of these fuels.”
Hailed also by leaders in the business aviation industry, the agreement recognizes the role strict accounting methodologies such as book-and-claim will play in stimulating the global marketplace. Book-and-claim is the process by which a customer purchases SAF and receives any environmental reporting benefits, while the actual fuel is dispensed into another aircraft perhaps hundreds or thousands of miles away.
“The CAAF/3 framework advances a key tool for the global business aviation community to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050,” noted International Business Aviation Council (IBAC) director-general Kurt Edwards. “IBAC and the business aviation community will work with ICAO and governments to demonstrate how book-and-claim, using globally accepted accounting practices, can enable small operators, no matter where they are in the world, to send demand signals for SAF while claiming environmental attributes and ensuring environmental integrity.”