Non-CO2 effects account for two-thirds of aviation’s total climate impact, but no mitigation measures have made it so far in the EU’s aviation climate package. What is the industry doing to address its full impact?

Despite scientific advancement many flight emissions calculators do not account for non-CO2 effects, resulting in a gross underestimation of the total climate footprint of a flight. In this session, we’ll discuss the non-CO2 effects. We’ll touch on the global assessment of contrails, uncertainties and mitigation strategies. Our experts will update us on the latest science.

Airports are classified as critical infrastructure due to their essential role in both mobility and economic growth. However, due to their fixed infrastructures and high vulnerability to disruptive weather events, they are particularly vulnerable to the potential consequences of climate change, which can create both operational and commercial impacts. It is therefore necessary to develop resilience to climate-related risks to protect the vital airport infrastructure and ensure the service continuity of airport operations.

Airports and airfields will play a critical part in enabling the aims of ZEF. As a result, they urgently need to plan for the required infrastructure, which must evolve rapidly to meet the needs of future operations. Roll-out of this next-generation infrastructure will have to be managed with both maximum safety and minimum service disruption. he first hydrogen-fuelled service is expected to be operational in the UK as early as 2024. This timeframe highlights the need for an urgent change to fundamental infrastructure to enable and support hydrogen operations.

With the convergence of CSRD and CORSIA compliance pressures impacting aviation players within 2 years, it is natural to see an increase in transition, green and sustainability-linked financing in the aviation sector. However, while we’ve seen increasingly novel financing products, creditors are getting increasingly concerned about reputational and greenwashing litigation risk. The industry needs to develop more targeted KPIs in sustainability-linked financing to help prevent greenwashing, assess metrics to measure aircraft and engine efficiency and decarbonisation effectiveness and focus on decoupling CO2 emissions trends from capacity growth, amongst other objectives. In this session, we’ll also discuss how the Government sees their role in driving private investment into the Net Zero transition.

Earlier this year, Spanish low-cost carrier Vueling made headlines with the announcement of its partnership with WheelTug. The use of the latter's technology allows Vueling's aircraft to push back without using their engines, providing optimum sustainability in the sense that it delays the engine startup until the latest possible moment, reducing emissions. 

Airports have the opportunity to adopt low emission development strategies, optimise their energy and resource use, pioneer the use of electric vehicles within their estates, embed circular economy principles as they build new capacity, and drive socially valuable outcomes for local populations. In this session, we’ll discuss the opportunities and challenges they face developing highly integrated approaches.