Aviation Intelligence Reporter November 2022
ICAO Assembly: One CORSIA to Rule Them All, On a State-by-State Basis
ICAO Assembles: What Larks!
Climate Change and Air Pollution: Two Sides of the Same Coin
Who Owns Ownership and Control?
Frequent Fliers; Frequent Emissions
Is the Hydrogen Bubble About to Burst?
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ICAO Assembly: One CORSIA to Rule Them All, On a State-by-State Basis*
*By Chris Lyle FRAeS
The dust may have settled on the ICAO Assembly, but the hype continues. Undoubtedly the Assembly achieved a lot in the areas where it has specialised technical proficiency such as air navigation, safety, security and flight operations. It also made a marked political statement by ejecting the Russian Federation from the ICAO Council, even if from the aviation-only perspective, Russia is the State with the largest territorial airspace and qualifies as both a State ‘of chief importance in air transport’ as well as one ‘which make the largest contribution to the provision of facilities for civil air navigation’, the selection criteria for Tiers 1 and 2 of the Council.
ICAO Assembles: What Larks!
Regular readers of the Aviation Intelligence Reporter will know that last year we spent some time asking Jacques Mason, independent aviation consultant, to look at the reform of ICAO. A number of ideas were floated. If you were looking for a simplification of the suggestions it would be ‘stick to your knitting of aviation safety’. Or, less diplomatically but more directly, get rid of both a permanently sitting Council and the Air Transport Bureau oversight of economic issues. Environmental regulation? Forget about it.
Climate Change and Air Pollution: Two Sides of the Same Coin
The September edition of the Aviation Intelligence Reporter described the long and winding saga within the Commission and the European Parliament concerning aviation non-CO2 climate impacts and specifically the finding that reducing aromatics, mainly naphthalene, in today’s kerosene via additional refinery hydrotreatment can cut contrail formation significantly, albeit at a slight fuel cost penalty. The cleaner fuel, with less aromatics and much lower sulphur, reduces NvPM (non-volatile particulate matter) – soot or black carbon – emissions from jet engines which are a principal factor in forming contrails at altitude. NvPM, together with sulphur-induced SOx ultrafine particulate matter pollution from the jet blast is also a growing scourge at many airports.
Who Owns Ownership and Control?
To the surprise even of the delegates at the ICAO Assembly, once again, the vexing question of ownership and control was on the agenda, and had a fleeting appearance, in Montreal. Qatar raised the issue and tried, again, to inject any form of life into an ICAO treaty on the topic. They would have had more luck getting Tutankhamun to sit up and talk. Still, if you enjoy a laugh, here is the working paper from an Air Transport Conference in 2013 that tries to resuscitate a paper from the Assembly before that one, to propose a new treaty on the topic.
Frequent Fliers; Frequent Emissions
Windfall taxes for energy companies, increases in top-end tax rates and increased capital gains and property taxes are being discussed around the world as we try to grapple with the next economic disaster we face. And so say we for aviation. The next big disaster we face is sustainability, and the need to reduce our emissions. Certainly, that is not a problem for aviation alone. The warnings are stark across the board. The UN Environment Programme has declared that there is no credible pathway to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees – the Paris target – and a number of tipping points are at the point of tipping. On the upside, the International Energy Agency predicted that we might reach peak fossil fuel use in 2025, but that is not something we can say in aviation. All going well and with a following breeze, we will just be getting above and beyond 2019 volumes by 2025 we proudly proclaim.
Is the Hydrogen Bubble About to Burst?
We are pinning a lot of our hopes for the future on hydrogen. It is more likely to be the long-term winner for aviation, the argument goes, than SAFs. It is renewable, unlimited and if processed with green energy, zero carbon. Hooray! Who does not like that concept? Airbus has already told the world that it has high hopes for hydrogen. There is only one flaw in this plan – has anyone told the hydrogen industry? The hydrogen industry is working hard to quell the feeling that it is in a bubble and it does not really appreciate the additional attention it is now getting.