Today's Guest blogger is Robert O'Meara who is Communications Manager at ACI Europe.

So, it's that time of year again. Peak summer season. If you have been through an airport recently, you'll doubtless have seen for yourself just how busy it is. But in the journey from check-in to security to boarding your flight, what activities did you notice on the airport site?

In the midst of security threats, extreme weather and the many other surprises that aviation can often be affected by (volcanic ash, anyone?), sometimes it's all too easy to overlook the environmental efforts being made by an airport.

Airports all over Europe are undertaking all kinds of environmental projects: from changing the airport car fleet to electric or hybrid technology, to photovoltaic parks, enhanced water management and recycling projects. So much of these activities go unnoticed by the passenger.

Airport Carbon Accreditation - mentioned on a number of previous occasions in this blog - celebrated its first birthday in mid-June. In that first year, 20 European airports became accredited at one of the four different levels possible: 'Mapping', 'Reduction', 'Optimisation' and 'Neutrality'.

Year 2 of the programme kicked off on 17 June 2010. And already, it's clear that momentum has moved up a gear. In less than 2 months, all of these airports have already renewed or become accredited for the first time:

- Milan Linate & Milan Malpensa in Italy
- Istanbul Airport in Turkey
- Bologna Airport in Italy
- Stockholm Arlanda and Stockholm Bromma airports in Sweden
- Ankara Esenboga Airport in Turkey
- Athens Airport in Greece
- Farnborough Airport in the UK
- Umea City Airport in Sweden
- Antalya Airport in Turkey

Some of these airports are at the beginning of the programme -  mapping the emissions sources under their control on the airport site. But nearly 50% of those listed are reducing CO2 emissions, actively engaging with others on the airport site to reduce theirs and offsetting any remaining CO2 emissions under the airports' direct control - effectively running carbon neutral operations.

So if you're passing through an airport terminal in the weeks or months ahead, take a look around. You may notice more recycling bins. The bus taking you to the aircraft may well be gas-powered. And the aeroplane you're travelling on probably won't leave its engines running on the ground, as occurred in the past. And you may see a banner that says 'This airport is participating in Airport Carbon Accreditation'.

I have just returned from Montreal, where I met with a number of colleagues from across the aviation sector at the ICAO Environment Colloquium. Hélène Gagnon, one of our Board members from airframe manufacturer Bombardier, explains about the colloquium in this video:

Hélène mentions our industry targets and goals in that video. One of them, to reduce our emission to half of what they were in 2005, by the year 2050 (despite growth in air travel), is an incredibly ambitious goal. But we are confident we can get there. Part of the goal will require a large upswing in the amount of sustainable biofuel we use. But a lot of the reduction in emissions will come with radical new technologies, some of which were presented recently...

Another colleague from the industry was also in Montreal - Carl Burleson from the FAA. He has just reviewed a set of new proposals from the design and future thinking powerhouse at MIT. Their radical new aircraft designs, presented as part of a NASA project, could result in significant savings of carbon emissions:

The D Series

This aircraft uses a double tube design (basically like joining two current aircraft fuselages next to each other and then adding wings) and new engine technology to produce an aircraft that could fly with 70% less emissions than current models. The structure has a very wide fuselage to provide extra lift. The aircraft would be used for domestic flights to carry 180 passengers for replacement of current narrow body aircraft.

The H Series

The MIT team also presented NASA with its design for the H “hybrid wing body” series to replace the widebody aircraft now used for international flights. The design features a triangular-shaped hybrid wing body aircraft that blends a wider fuselage with the wings for improved aerodyamics. The large centre body creates a forward lift that eliminates the need for a tail to balance the aircraft. The plane is designed to carry 350 passengers.

Now they look pretty cool, but perhaps the MIT guys could also work on better and more inspirational names!! Can you think of any?

The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), which is the UN specialised agency that gathers civil aviation chiefs from governments around the world, is hosting an Environmental Colloquium in May.

The event, from 11 - 14 May at ICAO Headquarters in Montréal, will provide a platform for the aviation industry and civil aviation authorities to discuss a way forward for dealing with aviation carbon emissions, ahead of the UN climate talks in Mexico in December.

We will be live blogging from the colloquium in Montréal. For more information on the event, check out the ICAO website.

A UK aviation coalition including airport operators BAA, airlines BA and Virgin Atlantic and the CAA have published a new interim code of practice this week, designed to help cut aircraft emissions by reducing fuel burn from aircraft at airports. The document is technical in nature, and so primarily targeted at pilots, flight planners and airport operators who are collectively encouraged to get involved in methods such as single-engine taxiing, once safety considerations are assured. By shutting down an engine during taxi-in operations pilots are told they could achieve reductions of 20-40% of the ground level fuel burn and CO2 emissions, and 10-30% of ground NOx emissions, depending on aircraft type and operator technique.

The environmental practices that are highlighted in the document are also said to deliver significant improvements to noise and local air quality at airports and reduce costs to airlines. Thus as well as providing global environmental benefits, it delivers additional local benefits to people living and working around airports.

The voluntary set of guidelines has been published ahead of the full version of the code that is expected to be finalised early next year, which will include advice on the use of airport terminal and ground power rather than running the aircraft's auxiliary power unit, 'continuous climb departures', and collaborative decision making to deliver further improvements.

Today, a group of airline chief executives will sit down with government and environment leaders at the UN in New York at one of a series of pre-events before December’s Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Copenhagen.

By all accounts, the negotiations for the next Kyoto Protocol are not going as well as they should be and today’s event has been described as ‘shock therapy’ for getting the stalled talks going again. The aviation industry also hopes that, this time, we will be included in the international agreement. So today in New York, industry leaders such as Willie Walsh from British Airways and Mats Jansson from SAS will be presenting the industry’s plan for dealing with our emissions.

Importantly, this plan is from across the aviation industry. While airlines will be in the room today in New York, the plan is backed by airports (through ACI), airlines (through IATA), air navigation service providers (through CANSO) and aircraft and engine manufacturers (through ICCAIA). This is, as far as we know, the only global industry able to stand up together and point to one plan for dealing with our emissions.

So what is our plan?

• From 2020, we will cap emissions – CO2 from aviation will continue to grow until 2020, at which point it will be capped.
• In an aspirational goal, by 2050, we will work towards producing half the net emissions we produced in 2005 – the equivalent of around 320 million tonnes of CO2.

So, how can we achieve this while passenger numbers continue to grow? The reductions come from a number of areas which all begin to add up to some significant savings. Early last year, the entire sector signed up to the Aviation Industry Commitment to Action on Climate Change. This document layed out a four-pillar approach which will see reductions through technology, operations, infrastructure and economic measures.

In the technology section, for example, replacing old aircraft with newer, more efficient places will reduce emissions by 21% over ‘business as usual’ in 2020. The introduction of sustainable biofuels could shave off a further 5% (based on a low but realistic penetration of biofuel into the jet fuel supply – with governments really getting behind a sustainable biofuel industry, this could bring a bigger saving).

The huge range of operational measures available to the industry, such as reduced auxiliary power unit usage, more efficient flight procedures, and weight reduction measures, could achieve another 3% cut in emissions.

An additional 4% cut in emissions will come from improving the efficiency of air traffic control through government-led infrastructure projects such as NextGen in the USA and Single European Sky in Europe.

And the rest? To ‘plug the gap’ once we have reduced emissions as much as we can, the industry will need to engage in economic measures. This could include, for example, emissions trading. But whatever form this part takes, the industry is united in agreement that it must be worldwide in nature. Doing things country-by-country, or one region at a time causes competitive distortion and doesn’t provide a global solution for what is the most global of industries.

The most exciting announcement (and the most immediately challenging) from my point of view is for us to achieve carbon neutral growth from 2020. It will require an enormous effort by everyone across the industry (from aerodynamic specialists to ramp agents, pilots to chief executives and everyone in between), but our industry rarely shies away from a challenge. And we are up for this one!

Today's guest blogger is The Rt Hon Brian Wilson, former British Member of Parliament and current chair of Flying Matters, a UK coalition of aviation companies.

The UK Environment Secretary, Ed Miliband, recently declared that lower-income people should not be priced out of flying on environmental grounds. The UK Treasury appears to have no such qualms about airborne elitism since the impact of draconian increases in Air Passenger Duty, dressed up in spurious green clothes, will be exactly the one that Mr Miliband has rejected.

The vast majority of us take it for granted that we will, occasionally, be able to afford to visit friends and family in far flung places or to go on holiday abroad. It is a remarkable change from just 30 years ago when flying was still the preserve of an elite. It would be unjust and futile to implement policies designed to revert to that position.

The Government’s own figures confirm that the current rises in APD are expected to price over a million and a half people out of flying each year – with the prospect of much more to come.

The fundamental unfairness of these flight tax rises is evidenced by a recent study by the UK National Centre for Social Research which showed that people on low and middle incomes were most likely to stop flying altogether when prices were forced up, whilst those on higher incomes simply change to cheaper destinations.

The figures are eye watering. The tax will rise in stages so that by November next year a family of four flying to Jamaica will pay £300 in tax alone, compared with £160 now. The same family will pay £340 in tax to go to Sydney, more than double the current rate.

Research carried out by Populus showed that nearly half the population have loved ones living abroad and that many people combine holidays with visiting friends and family. The research also showed that cost of travel is the main factor in how often they can visit their loved ones abroad.

And what of those parts of the world which rely heavily on UK tourism to support their economies?  Kenya, Sri Lanka, the Caribbean, to name a few. There is real fear that the cost of flying to these countries will put off so many visitors that their economies will be badly hit.

If the blatant unfairness were not enough, the tax is completely ineffective in environmental terms.  APD is not hypothecated for environmental purposes. It doesn’t go towards research to reduce emissions either in aviation or other industries, whereas the aviation industry already spends more than £2.5billion a year on R&D to reduce its climate impact.

The UK is out of step on this issue given progress on ETS at EU level and the focus at the Copenhagen Summit in December on securing the inclusion of aviation in a global scheme to address its climate impact. Unilateral action by the UK government will cause economic pain for no environmental gain.

There is no economic or environmental justification for this socially regressive measure. As the UK public realise that the doors to the world are beginning to close for a large number of them, they may well express their disapproval at the ballot box. This time, The Environment Secretary is right and the Treasury is wrong.

I noticed a number of interesting stories in media this week. An article in EurActiv on Wednesday featured an interesting interview with Raffaello Garofalo, the Executive Director of the European Algae Biomass Association (EABA). EABA was launched on 5 June to address the lack of legal framework in Europe for the production of algae-to-biofuels.  Garofalo outlines the potential of algae as a source for biofuels since it does not need productive land that can be used for food, a common accusation that is made of biofuels. It also grows at exponential rates in polluted seawater where most other organisms die. There are even processes by which algae can algae absorb the pollution as a nutrient, allowing the water to be cleaned up and returned back to the ocean. To read the interview in full, click here.

Another article that caught my eye concerns the EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS). According to a report to be published by RDC Aviation and Point Carbon, the aviation sector could face a shortfall of 77 million tonnes of CO2 when it enters the EU ETS in 2012. The report finds that at the current spot price of €14.40 per tonne of CO2, the cost of having to purchase the necessary credits is likely to be in the region of €1.1 billion, with British Airways and US carriers facing the largest shortfalls.

On a slightly more optimistic note, Gulf Air has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Bahrain Government's General Directorate for the Protection of the Environment and Wildlife, in a major step forward in the airline's corporate social responsibility initiatives. Gulf Air Head of Corporate Social Responsibility Sameer Has-san Al Saeed told Gulf Daily News that "It (the MoU) has to be done now because if we leave it any longer then we will lose business; it's as simple as that." Staying in the same geographical region, Qatar Airways has been elected as a member of the International Air Transport Association’s Environment Committee (ENCOM) and also recently joined IATA’s new carbon offsetting programme.  I think all these examples shows that the industry is only stepping up its environmental initiatives in the current economic climate, showing that an economic downturn provides an even greater incentive for a reduction in carbon emissions.

 Today’s guest blog is written by Ben Caldecott, Head of the Environment & Energy Unit at Policy Exchange, a London-based think-tank.

If left unchecked emissions from aviation are set to account for up to a fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. This is clearly unsustainable and such a scenario should not be allowed to occur. To dramatically reduce emissions from flights that can’t be avoided, the aviation industry is going to have to deploy innovative technologies quickly. The current approach – of steadily improving aircraft fuel efficiency by approximately 1.5% per annum through better engines and airframes – can make an important contribution. These efficiency improvements will, however, be overwhelmed by the ever increasing number of flights, especially from large emerging countries such as China and India.

To really make a difference we need technologies that can be applied to all aircraft: old and new alike. The only credible option for dramatically reducing emissions from aviation is decarbonising the jet fuel used by all aircraft. Policy Exchange last week released our latest report, Green Skies Thinking: promoting the development and commercialisation of sustainable bio-jet fuels, which sets out how this could be done.

In the report, we recommend Governments to set targets for the replacement of standard kerosene jet fuel with sustainable bio-jet fuel from 20% of the jet fuel supply in 2020 to 80% by 2050. We also recommend that aviation be prioritised for the use of biofuels (over road transport and other uses), as it is the most effective use of biofuels. Governments must also place a priority on ensuring that the start-up bio-jet fuel market gets off the ground through research tax credits.

As covered by this website, sustainable biofuels in aviation are technically feasible and will be imminently certified as safe and compatible to be used in conjunction with standard jet fuel. If deployed in Europe under Policy Exchange’s proposals they would result in reductions of greenhouse gas emissions from the UK and EU aviation sectors of 15% in 2020 and 60% in 2050 relative to current predictions. Their deployment in the UK would result in emission reductions worth £37.41 billion between 2020 and 2050, as well as making a significant contribution to meeting the UK’s 2050 emission reduction target.

These fuels are not prohibitively expensive. If our proposals come to fruition, bio-jet fuel production costs may fall to around US$80 per barrel by 2030. This compares well with average jet fuel prices of US$62.29 per barrel from 2000 to 2008 and the jet fuel price peak of July 2008 when it reached US$167.70 per barrel. Just as importantly, the marginal land used to produce sustainable bio-jet fuels is ample, so enough feedstock can be cultivated to meet current and predicted total jet fuel demand.

For all of these reasons the development and commercialisation of sustainable bio-jet fuels should become a priority. Bio-jet fuels currently represent the only viable option for significantly reducing emissions from aviation without cutting the number of flights flown. Despite their potential, the current policy framework in the UK and EU is unable to deliver their deployment and commercialisation. This is partly because current policies do not support the investors and developers involved and fail to create the demand needed to enable commercialisation. Given the contribution they could make to reducing emissions from aviation, this should change.