Climate change negotiations have kicked off again in Bonn this week, as representatives from across the globe continue in their constant efforts for an agreement on how the world should move forward in the battle against climate change. So whilst industry representatives are busy in Bonn, explaining their commitments to collective efforts in combating global warming and how exactly they plan to meet the united industry targets, aviation companies back at home have been giving a real live demonstration of the progress that is being made.

In the United Arab Emirates, Dubai Airports have launched their ‘silent airport’ scheme, a project aimed at reducing noise pollution both inside and outside the airport, lowering their environmental footprint as well improving the ambiance of the airport. To reduce emissions and cut down on noise outside the airport, Dubai Airports will begin a phased withdrawal of older generation aircraft that do not conform to international noise and emission standards set by ICAO. As the fleet of aircraft becomes newer and more efficient, fuel consumption will be cut significantly, resulting in reduced carbon emissions from the aircraft using the airport. Inside the airport, the scheme involves the elimination of unnecessary announcements, creating a quieter and more pleasant atmosphere for travellers!

Elsewhere, Heathrow Airport has completed the installation of Vokes Air pocket filters on air handling plant – a new air filtration arrangement developed by the Vokes-Air Group who has been working in partnership with Heathrow Airport to reduce energy consumption and CO2 emissions. The British Airports Authority is predicting that the new air filters could lead to savings of more than £1 million and reduce CO2 emissions at the airport by 6,000 tonnes per year.

And finally, as proof that the work taking place across the industry does not go unnoticed, Auckland Airport has been recognized this week by EarthCheck – the world’s leading sustainable travel and tourism certification organization, for its commitment to sustainable business practice. Auckland Airport was awarded Bronze Benchmarked status by The EarthCheck Programme, which measures key environmental indicators such as energy and water consumption, total waste production as well as community commitment.

It was somewhat surreal that as we were leaving the Bella Centre last night after another day's discussions on global warming, it was snowing heavily. The city looks rather magical this morning and I can tell you this because the city is all we can see - we have been kicked out of the Bella Centre as the unexpectedly large number of world leaders (and their security) start to arrive.

Over the past few days, the restrictions on numbers entering the centre have got tighter and tighter. On Monday, some people who had not yet registered waited for nine hours in line to get in. On Tuesday and Wednesday, the non-governmental organisations were restricted to 7,000 people - from a total of 18,000 the week before. Today that has been cut back again, to 300. Those select few (including our Executive Director) are only allowed in to the first section of the centre - nowhere near the heads of state or country delegations.

Some, like the above, attempted to stay overnight and therefore not have to leave and be refused entry this morning. They were not successful.

So, where does this leave any Copenhagen Climate Agreement? The truth is, we don't know. Due to a series of tactical errors by the Danish chairmanship of the process, the talks which had been plodding along nicely were stalled in a political mess for the last two days. There are reports that the Danish Prime Minister's office is in chaos this morning. Hillary Clinton in a press conference has just said that President Obama may not come "if there is nothing for him to come for".

We are having to wait and see, just like everyone else.

Things are hotting up here in Copenhagen. After the country representatives spent all last week working on the text dealing with aviation, suddenly yesterday the President of the COP - who chairs the proceedings - announced that she was splitting these workstreams into even smaller groups and making the sessions closed to observers. It is very difficult for us to know what is happening behind these closed doors, so we just continue to speak to delegates in the halls and track the other exciting news of the day - the expected first flight of the Boeing 787.

This aircraft heralds a new era in efficient flight - built from lightweight composite materials and utilising new engine and aerodynamic design, it is 20% more efficient per passenger than the aircraft they replace. After a number of delays, partly due to the brand new technology that has been developed, the 787 test aircraft took its first high-speed run yesterday in Seattle. Today, at 10am Pacific Standard Time (7 pm CET), subject to weather conditions - and it is fairly cold in Seattle at this point - the aircraft will take off for its first flight. We will be watching and bring you any new information, but if you want to watch yourself, Boeing are providing a live feed on their website.

The Danish Government specified that 65% of all food in the congress centre for COP15 be organic. Instead, the caterers thought they said 65% tasteless and 100% de-frosted. The food is really bad here (aside from the carrot cake).

Other than that, the event is actually very well organised. The computer systems are good (wi-fi is available everywhere and is very fast), there are recycling bins all over the place, they have put up three massive temporary buildings to house the delegation offices and the Danish people are all very friendly and go out of their way to be of service.

I am not sure where the fruit and vegetables served in the cafes is from, but if one group presenting here in Copenhagen has their way, it may well be from the Sahara in the future...

One of the challenges to overcome in supplying the aviation industry with sustainable biofuel for our aircraft is finding land on which to grow it. The Bellona Foundation of Norway is backing a scheme called The Sahara Forest Project which is looking to use large parts of the Sahara Desert to grow crops and biofuels using solar energy and desalinated water. It's a good idea. As the above graphic shows, the land can be used for a concentrated solar power plant, a photovoltaic solar power array, greenhouses for growing crops and - importantly for us in aviation - a high-density algae biofuel production facility.

According to the Sahara Forest Project, "Deserts are often used as symbols of infertility and lost hope. Many, if not all of the world's deserts, formerly supported vegetation. Were it not for the lack of fresh water, they could still do so... the world is not short of water. The water is just in the wrong place and is too salty."

It is these types of forward thinking innovations that will allow us to continue living our lives, but in a low-carbon way and provide much needed economic development and jobs in some of the poorest parts of the world.

It's Saturday and the work of the COP15 continues, although most of the meetings today are closed. Security was noticably tighter coming in this morning, as Ministers and the high-level delegations start arriving. Security is also especially strong today due to a mass protest that is expected to take place.

I was reflecting this morning on the different negotiating strengths of states here. Some countries have brought very large delegations, but a large number of small states have just a few delgates (slightly off-point, but while the Australian Prime Minister was having to defend a 117-strong delegation, the USA has 200 delegates, Brazil has 1,000 and the UK around 70 negotiatiors, it is interesting to note that green group Friends of the Earth has over 600 staff here).

There is a large globe in the main atrium area of the congress centre (pictured above) and just above New Zealand on that map should be the Cook Islands - it doesn't appear, along with a large number of other tiny island states (although more due to logistics than a deliberate snub, I expect). One of the Cook Island delegation stood on a chair the other day and wrote "Cook Islands" on the globe. A small action, but quite symbolic I think. The small island states have been very vocal in these negotiations - particularly Tuvalu - and it is only right that the developed world listens to them as they are the nations to be hit first and hardest by climate change. I also think it is important that the larger developing states listen to them too.

I am sure most of you are seeing the news coming from the Copenhagen Climate Talks on TV or in the press. What you see doesn't always capture the reality though. Despite the theatrical walk-outs by delegations, the suspension of negotiations and other drama, things here on the ground are not actually that exciting.

So, what are we doing on a day-to-day basis? Well, the large document that everyone is working towards here - the co-called Copenhagen Accord (although there have been indications today that it may turn into a Copenhagen Protocol) - has been split into a huge number of sections which are the subject of entire negotiations just by themselves. Literally, the text is broken up and negotiated paragraph-by-paragraph by different teams of delegates.

One such team is working on the text that relates to "bunker fuels" - carbon emissions caused by fuel carried across international waters and borders by aircraft and ships. This team has been negotiating about how these emissions may be treated under any new agreement. These negotiating sessions are closed to everyone except the official country delegates, but every now and then through contacts at NGOs or even on country delegations, we are able to get copies of how the new texts on aviation are progressing. There are currently around four or five different versions of the text that is interesting to us.

We also use our time here to provide information to those making the decisions - we have meetings with delegations, try to bump into important people in the corridors and hold side events (basically give presentations about our position and take time to answer questions from both delegates and environmental groups). Paul Steele, our executive director, spoke about aviation biofuels yesterday (you can watch a video here). We held our own side event on our political objectives today (photo above) and Paul is speaking right now at a Romanian Government event on aviation efficiency. It is all about making sure the guys in the negotiating room have all the information they need to make the right decisions.

Work continues tomorrow (Saturday). There's no rest for the negotiations, as all the Ministers start to arrive over the weekend.

It’s day three at the Copenhagen Climate Talks and I thought I would take a few minutes to give my reflections on the event so far. The first word to describe COP15 is massive. The venue is enormous – it takes at least 15 minutes to get from the entrance security to our office. You really have to take into account the distance you need to walk to get to a meeting or a side event and it was not a good idea to be wearing new shoes! The number of participants is crazy – we heard that over 34,000 people tried to register for the event but the venue can only hold 15,000 (which is more than enough I’d have thought).

The second phrase that comes to mind is controlled mayhem. Aside from it taking three hours for some of our delegates to actually get in the door on Monday (security + registration + thousands of people = queues), everywhere you look, there is a person dressed up as a tree, or a troupe of performance artists with a message about the environment, or a mini protest. And that’s before we start talking about the official proceedings!

You may have heard about the two biggest stories of Monday and Tuesday:

• A copy of a ‘secret’ agreement that was being worked on by a few countries in parallel to the main agreement was leaked to The Guardian.
• And today’s surprise intervention by the island state of Tuvalu, who proposed a new Protocol to run alongside the Kyoto Protocol. This caused major ructions amongst the G77 + China group of which they are a part, but seems to have a lot of support from other small island states and NGOs.

So I would imagine that there will be people working until the early hours tomorrow morning to try ensure the talks progress and don’t get mired in political games – I am writing this at 9pm and there are still a lot of delegates floating around - in fact the photo above was just taken.

From an aviation perspective, we took part in the ICAO side event yesterday where we spoke about our industry goals and targets. We have spent the last couple of days talking to delegations from a number of countries about our industry position. There has not been a lot of news to report, as aviation emissions have been a very small part of the programme – with much more challenging subjects such as the battle over CBDR in focus.

Tomorrow, we will be talking about our work on biofuels at a side event hosted by the Bellona Foundation and on Friday will be speaking about operational efficiency at an event hosted by the Romanian government.

While some 15,000 delegates make their way here for the Copenhagen Climate Talks which start tomorrow, back in Switzerland something else was happening...

One of the topics under discussion amongst delegates here is breakthrough technology that can really change the way we operate. In aviation, we are working on a number of these technologies: advanced second-generation biofuels, new airframe designs and potentially new ways to power aircraft systems. One such exploration is solar power.

A team in Switzerland, led by the inimitable Bertrand Piccard, has constructed Solar Impulse - a plane that will in the next couple of years, complete an around-the-world flight powered by nothing more than solar energy.

This week, the aircraft made its first steps towards that flight by getting airborne for the first time. This video shows the event which, to my eyes, is reminiscent of the old Wright Brothers footage from Kitty Hawke (although the camera technology has moved on just a little bit!).

Now, we don't think that solar energy will be enough to power commercial flights, but there are all sorts of on-board systems like air conditioning or in-flight entertainment that could use solar energy. We'll be keeping an eye on Solar Impulse as it starts flying more confidently.

With the major UN Climate Talks in Copenhagen just a week away, our friends at Copenhagen Airport are preparing themselves for the arrival of dozens of heads of state. As Soeren Nielsen says in this interview, they don't think the 15,000 - 20,000 delegates coming to the conference will be a problem for them to handle, but its all the heads of state travelling on their own jets that may prove an issue:

Of course, if these heads of state really wanted to reduce their carbon footprint, they could try flying commerically! We will be present in Copenhagen, talking to delegates about our industry commitments such as carbon neutral growth from 2020 and a 50% reduction in emissions by 2050, as well as our response to politically weighty subjects such as CBDR. We will be posting more about our position on certain issues in the coming week.

This morning I write from the Fira Congress Centre in Barcelona, where the UNFCCC Climate Talks are continuing. Most of the negotiations are occurring in so-called “closed session”, so it’s hard to gauge how the talks are going, aside from the gossip in the corridors. The gossip is not indicating a particularly positive outcome for the overall discussions and there is a lot of pessimism for how the talks will pan out in Copenhagen.

I thought it might be useful to examine some of the issues that are going to be a big part of the discussions going in to Copenhagen. Some of them directly impact aviation, some of them don’t.

Common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDR)

Where better to start than with the most complex and contentious issue of them all – the difference between the developed world and the developing world. In UN climate change speak, they are called “Annex 1” (developed world) and “Non-Annex 1” (developing world) countries.

At the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, when the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was first established, the developing countries managed to get a principle embedded in the discussions – that of common but differentiated responsibilities, or CBDR.

The basic concept behind this is that historically, it has been the developed world that has produced the most greenhouse gasses (CO2 stays in the atmosphere for around 100 years) and the access to ‘cheap’ energy through coal and oil has enabled their economies to prosper. The developing world wants to be able to experience the same growth and so they don’t believe they should have the same restrictions placed on them in terms of carbon emissions reductions. It is also very true to say that on a per-capita basis, people in the developed world emit far more than those in the developing world. Therefore, a lot of the targets that are agreed to at negotiations like those here in Barcelona are applied to “Annex 1” countries, but not “non-Annex 1”.

CBDR is the key principle guiding a lot of the discussions and is the main sticking point for a lot of the countries. The developing world wants to hold on to it at all costs. Some parties in the developed world are now saying that this division is artificial and all countries should reduce emissions, although the developing world can enjoy some concessions to encourage economic growth.

How does this impact aviation? Well, we don’t think it should impact our industry at all. Aviation is a global industry that crosses borders and moves between Annex 1 and non-Annex 1 countries every day. Airlines in the developing world use the same aircraft types as in the developed world. Airlines in some countries that are classed as developing are some of the most successful in the world. Air transport is also highly mobile – if there are different taxes and charges based on whether airlines fly into certain developing countries, it will create market distortion and lead to all sorts of issues where some airlines get preferential treatment over others, flying the same route and facing the same competitive pressures.

We think there should be one, single, global solution for our sector recognising the special circumstance we find ourselves in. It could even provide assistance to developing nation airlines and aviation systems to improve efficiency. In fact, this very principle of mutual assistance for the developing world it at the heart of a lot of the work that the UN civil aviation organisation ICAO has done throughout its history. In areas such as noise regulations, safety and security, there is a common set of standards worldwide. Those countries that can’t afford to implement them either get more time than developed countries, or assistance from those other parts of the industry that can move faster. It has worked to make aviation the safest form of transport on earth and we believe it is the most effective model for dealing with our climate change impact.

CBDR is a massive issue that is an awful lot larger than the aviation part of the discussions, it could potentially derail any Copenhagen talks and is proving to be a difficult issue here in Barcelona. If you have any questions about CBDR or the aviation approach to the issue, feel free to ask them in the comments.