Air Transport Action Group (ATAG) and Cranfield University organized a Global Aviation Summit 2022 to bring together the thoughts of global leaders on net zero 2050 targets. The summit gave a platform to discuss the major achievements, the barriers, lessons learned, and how the sector can best make further substantial and immediate progress to achieve decarbonisation.
Mohamed Khalifa Rahma, Director of the Air Transport Bureau at ICAO, said: “It was a new beginning for the sector. Aviation had the opportunity to build back better and leaner but international co-operation was needed now more than ever before. There is a need for sustainable fuels to be available on a global commercial scale, for example, ICAO is working to catalyze collaboration and encourage capacity-building, helping to reach agreements between states to fully develop sustainable fuels and their deployment.”
Haldane Dodd, Executive Director at ATAG, said: “Before COVID-19, we had $7 billion worth of sustainable aviation fuel offtake agreements during Covid that has increased to $25 billion. This is a sector that is moving very rapidly and we’re getting more and more interest from the finance community and also from governments to actually make this happen.”
Professor Iain Gray, Director of Aerospace at Cranfield University, said: “We need rapid evolution of zero carbon technologies, and that will be dependent on a solid foundation of research evidence, backed up with investment and commitment along the way.
There was general agreement across contributors that hitting the 2050 target would be achievable through two major stages: the widespread adoption of sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs) in the short-term to demonstrate carbon reductions; followed by a more radical stage where infrastructure would need to adapt to zero carbon technologies such as hydrogen and electric.