
Watch: Aviation faces inflection point as climate challenge looms
While the attention of the Aviation industry is firmly on recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, the challenge to reduce emissions must not be forgotten. Addressing customers’ growing climate change concerns with urgent action to mitigate emissions is a must if airlines are going to survive, warns a leading sustainability advisor.

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Air passenger traffic is expected to plummet 66% in 2020 because of the pandemic and it may be years before it recovers to pre-pandemic levels.[1] That means industry leaders have been understandably focused on protecting the bottom line and minimising job losses, says Annie Petsonk, International Counsel at the Environmental Defense Fund.
Tackling Aviation Emissions Is Key to Industry’s Growth
Description:
Joel Makower interviews Annie Petsonk on aviation's urgent need to mitigate emissions.
Title: Annie Petsonk Transcript
Duration: 5:52 minutes
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The Shell™ pecten logo appears, then fades. A three dimensional model of Earth rotates while white silhouettes of planes fly across the globe. On the right side of the screen, a shot of Annie Petsonk talking with no audio.
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Flightpath: Navigating the Route to Sustainable Aviation
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This episode
Aviation faces inflection point as climate challenge looms beyond COVID-19
{Joel Makower sits onscreen. Facing him is Annie Petsonk. The camera alternates between speakers.}
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Joel Makower
Executive Editor
GreenBiz.com
Joel Makower:
I'm Joel Makower. We're talking about what it will take to make aviation sustainable with Annie Petsonk, International Counsel at the Environmental Defense Fund.
Joel Makower:
How would you describe the state of aviation sustainability today?
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Annie Petsonk
International Counsel
Environmental Defense Fund
Annie Petsonk:
I think airlines have tried to make some commitments towards sustainability. They're beginning to look at sustainable alternative fuels. But the scale and tempo of those changes are nowhere sufficient to meet the climate challenge.
Now, in the era of COVID and climate change, the leaders in the industry need to seize this opportunity as an inflection point, and transform aviation into an instrument of sustainability.
Joel Makower:
Talk a little bit more about EDF's Net Zero initiative. What is it doing to help companies get to where they need to go, further, faster?
Annie Petsonk:
First, the companies are setting internal goals for getting to net zero, and even becoming net reducers of emissions on ambitious timetables. Their goals include their so-called scope three or travel emissions.
The second thing they're doing is sharing, learning with each other, and with other companies, on how to achieve this enormous challenge of the transformation to net zero.
Joel Makower:
So in your conversations with airlines, what do you get the sense that's driving them to take on these initiatives?
Annie Petsonk:
There are three factors. The first is the impact of climate change itself. The hot days that climate change is causing means that, on the hottest days, airplanes simply can't take off. There's not enough lift. Runway's too hot.
The second is their customers. Customers are beginning to demand climate action from airlines in two ways. First, young people, following the Greta Thunberg's lead, have followed the flight shame movement.
But more importantly, in my book, corporate customers are following that same lead. Companies, as I mentioned, have taken on important climate change commitments. And they're starting to ask their airlines, "How are you going to help me reduce my scope three or travel related carbon emissions?" During the pandemic, corporate customers, they're simply not flying.
Annie Petsonk:
If airlines want to entice those road warrior corporate customers back onto planes, they're going to have to show that they're actually moving fast to help those corporate customers help meet their climate commitments.
The third factor that's starting to impinge on airlines is Wall Street. We see a growing movement among investors, looking for sustainability, proof of sustainability among companies.
Joel Makower:
What actions or strategies do you recommend that airlines undertake?
Annie Petsonk:
It's got to come from the top, Joel. We really see the need for leadership of airlines to really think about and embrace ambitious climate goals.
The airlines that move first to put an internal price on carbon will be the ones that find it advantageous to make investments today, in things like light-weighting. Every ounce of weight you save on the aircraft saves fuel, saves money, and saves emissions.
Joel Makower:
Who's going to pay for all this?
Annie Petsonk:
Sustainable aviation fuel is the big one that the airlines would really like to crack. [T]he price differential between jet fuel and truly sustainable aviation fuel is very large.
What we think is needed is a joint effort involving governments, the airlines, and their largest customers, to develop innovative financial instruments and government support, to bridge the gap between conventional jet fuel and sustainable aviation fuel.
Joel Makower:
What's the role of offsets here? Where do they fit in?
Annie Petsonk:
We think there are high quality offsets out there. We think they can play a very important role, if they're done right.
Joel Makower:
What does it mean for an offset to be high quality?
Annie Petsonk:
Several things. First, it has to be well measured. And since an offset is earned by reducing emissions below what would have otherwise happened, you have to do a pretty good job of figuring out what would have otherwise happened.
You also need to track that offset credit throughout its lifetime, to make sure that no one else is claiming credit for those same reductions.
The third thing that I think is important to stress about offsets is that emission reduction investments can be really important, not only in reducing carbon emissions, but reducing emissions of other pollutants. And so companies that are interested in using offsets to offset their aviation emissions, I think should look preferentially at the social and equity benefits of those offsets.
Joel Makower:
When you look at what it takes to make aviation sustainable through the lens of the entire aviation industry ecosystem, who's not at the table that needs to be?
Annie Petsonk:
First, local communities. I think back to my dad's biplane in the little airport in Pennsylvania in a cornfield, and the farmers around the airport aren't at the table. They have an ability to provide a more sustainable aviation fuel if we can get it right. Local communities across the United States could be providing more sustainable aviation fuel. You see things like municipal garbage we could turn into aviation fuel. Overstocked forests in the Western United States, which are tinder kegs now, we could be taking out those dead trees and turning that dead wood into sustainable aviation fuel.
Joel Makower:
When we look out a few years at the aviation technology roadmap, we see a lot of promising technologies, electrification being one of the main ones. How much should we be looking to those as the solution to aviation sustainability challenges?
Annie Petsonk:
Electric flight there maybe useful, particularly for short haul journeys.
But for long haul aviation, I think that changes to the design of the aircraft to improve the aircraft, so that sustainable aviation fuels with little to no carbon impact, climate impact, can be put into the aircraft. I think those will be important.
Joel Makower:
[W]hat keeps you up at night about aviation sustainability?
Annie Petsonk:
I worry most, frankly, that the airline CEOs are understandably preoccupied with the bottom line for their companies and, with trying to protect the jobs. But if they don't move to tackle the climate crisis and put it at the core of their rebuilding from COVID, then the risk is that aviation will rebuild from COVID only to be confronted with the climate crisis and another dramatic reduction in flying that leaves jobs stranded.
Joel Makower:
What keeps you hopeful?
Annie Petsonk:
The people I know who work in the sector, who understand the science of climate change, understand the need to move swiftly to tackle the climate crisis. The people who are working outside the sector, but driving innovation in alternative fuels, in reducing emissions in the carbon markets to generate offset credits. Those give me inspiration and help me believe that we can together get this done, that working together, local communities with airports, airlines, and major customers and governments, we can together get this done.
Joel Makower:
Thank you, Annie.
Annie Petsonk:
Thanks Joel
But if they don't move to tackle the climate crisis and put it at the core of their rebuilding from COVID-19, then the risk is that aviation will rebuild from COVID-19 only to be confronted with the climate crisis and another dramatic reduction in flying,” she says in an interview with Joel Makower, Executive Editor of GreenBiz Group.
“It's time for aviation leadership to seize this moment and rebuild in a way that puts the industry on a transformation to net-zero [carbon emissions],” Petsonk says. “If they do, they can build an aviation system that will allow the world to continue to fly, allow people to continue to work in the aviation sector, and all the benefits that aviation provides in terms of traveling and connectivity and economic development to continue.”
Petsonk suggests that such bold action is increasingly a core expectation of passengers – especially business travellers who are many airlines’ chief source of revenue.
“Companies have taken on important climate-change commitments. And they're starting to ask their airlines, ‘How are you going to help me reduce my scope-three or travel-related carbon emissions?’ They're going to have to show that they're actually moving fast to tackle the climate crisis, and help those corporate customers help meet their climate commitments,” she says.
Innovating a path to net-zero
The aviation industry has committed to halving CO2 emissions from international flights by 2050 relative to 2005 levels. Some even aspire to reach net-zero emissions. But for many airlines, the impact of COVID-19 has turned into a struggle for survival and raised questions about their ability and commitment to meeting carbon-reduction goals.
Petsonk, whose father flew an open-cockpit biplane and tried to invent a process to turn farm waste into airplane fuel, believes that now is the time for the aviation industry to lean into its commitments to decarbonization, particularly in ramping up use of sustainable aviation fuel.
“What we think is needed is a joint effort involving governments, airlines, and their largest customers to develop innovative financial instruments and government support to bridge the gap between conventional jet fuel and sustainable aviation fuel,” Petsonk says.
In addition to buying more sustainable aviation fuel, investing in new technologies and operational efficiencies, and tapping the power of nature-based carbon offsets, airlines should also move to put an internal price on carbon. That will help drive investments in programmes, such as refitting airplane cabins with ultra-light materials, that are hard to justify under current business models, Petsonk says.
Time for leadership
Petsonk warns that failure to take bold action on climate now could result in an even more damaging and expensive crisis for aviation. Potential threats include flight operations disrupted by extreme weather events, coastal airports endangered by rising sea levels, impatient governments imposing harsher regulations, concerned investors withdrawing financial support, and disillusioned customers shunning flying altogether.
“We really see the need for leadership of airlines now, at this time when CEOs are just trying to pick their companies up off the ropes, to really think about and embrace ambitious climate goals. It starts with setting an internal airline climate goal that's much more ambitious than any of the ones that are currently on the books, transforming to net zero [emissions], and putting an internal price on carbon,” Petsonk says.
“With those kinds of internal drivers – a cap on carbon, and a price on carbon, inside the airline – the investment picture changes. And investments that can help reduce emissions move to the fore.”
“The aviation industry has a tremendous reservoir of talent that is motivated to solve the climate crisis and to solve aviation's impact on the climate crisis,” she says. “The new designs of aircraft engines, electric planes - we can only begin to envision these today, but the sooner we begin that transformation, the faster it will occur.”
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The state of aviation sustainability today: a conversation with Annie Petsonk
Recently, our Flightpath host, Joel Makower, sat down with Annie Petsonk, International Counsel at the Environmental Defense Fund, to discuss how the industry’s course to recovery must also track toward a more sustainable future.