The ICAO is the\u00a0International Civil Aviation Organization<\/a>. It was\u00a0\u201cestablished to help countries share their skies to their mutual benefit. ICAO assists the 193 Contracting States to the Chicago Convention as they develop and adopt standards, practices, and policies for international civilian flight. Industry and civil society groups, in addition to relevant multilateral organizations, contribute importantly to these ICAO outcomes as \u2018Invited Organizations\u2019.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n In practice, they operate in pretty similar manners. They gather together national, industry, and relevant stakeholders, they form committees and working groups, they run workshops and conferences, and they hammer out agreements on standards, safety, regulations, and things like climate targets. But the tone is pretty different between the two, isn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n Anything else in their\u00a0About<\/em>\u00a0pages worth mentioning? Well, there\u2019s this from the IMO:<\/p>\n \u201cAs part of the United Nations family, IMO is actively working towards the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the associated SDGs [sustainable development goals]. Indeed, most of the elements of the 2030 Agenda will only be realized with a sustainable transport sector supporting world trade and facilitating global economy. IMO\u2019s Technical Cooperation Committee has formally approved\u00a0linkages between the Organization\u2019s technical assistance work and the SDGs. While the oceans goal is central to IMO, aspects of the Organization\u2019s work can be linked to all individual SDGs.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n SDG 13, of course, is climate action.<\/p>\n What about the ICAO\u00a0About<\/em>\u00a0page? Anything on sustainable development? Anything on climate change? Nope. Crickets.<\/p>\n The IMO has a much more action-oriented way of articulating its vision and purpose, and fronts up to sustainable development, including climate action, directly. The ICAO has a much more passive way of describing its role, and doesn\u2019t bother to mention anything much except helping bring the glory that is civil aviation to every corner of the world. It\u2019s unclear if either is overstating or understating its authority and influence.<\/p>\n Since the two industries are both climate change emission problems of the same order of magnitude, and are both considered hard-to-abate sectors, you\u2019d think that perhaps, just perhaps, they\u2019d place equal weight upon the matter. Until recently, that was true. Their last updates, from pre-COVID, were uninspiring.<\/p>\n What triggered this small digression into UN alphabet agencies that are barely known outside of their industries? Well, the IMO has a working group called the Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC). It just had its 80th session, MEPC 80, on 3-7 July 2023, at its headquarters in London, England. Bond aficionados would likely recognize it, as it\u2019s just up the river from MI6 headquarters.<\/p>\n The MEPC, unsurprisingly, has the climate action file for the IMO. And unlike the last time they provided an update on maritime shipping and climate change, they actually had some good results out of this one. What are the biggies? For that, let\u2019s turn to the UMAS. Another acronym? Yes, it stands for University Maritime Advisory Services. It\u2019s the consultancy arm that\u2019s part of the University College London (UCL) Energy Institute. It provided a useful\u00a0FAQ on MEPC 80\u2019s results<\/a>, which I\u2019ll crib from liberally.<\/p>\n \u201cIn terms of a reduction pathway the strategy sets expectations on the sector, and indeed on the development of future policy measures, to strive for\u00a030% GHG reductions by 2030<\/strong>,\u00a080% GHG reductions by 2040<\/strong>, on 2008 levels, and an overall level of ambition of reaching\u00a0net-zero emissions as close to 2050<\/strong>\u00a0as possible.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n That\u2019s a big step up, and as with many UN COP conferences, tiny countries, especially low-lying Pacific nations at risk of disappearing in a hotter world, did a bunch of heavy lifting to shame global attendees into doing more than they had in 2018. It\u2019s possible that the string of heat records that were broken every day globally during the event had something to do with it as well.<\/p>\n There\u2019s some even better news in there. That\u2019s GHGs, not just carbon dioxide (CO2). They are explicitly including methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N20) in the targets. The last two have much higher global warming potentials than carbon dioxide, and are missing-in-action in carbon pricing solutions, if not\u00a0social cost of carbon<\/a>\u00a0calculations, in many countries. And those are well-to-wake emissions, not just aboard-ship emissions. That\u2019s going to frost the shorts of the global methanol and ammonia industries, which have clearly been angling to sell a lot of their\u00a0unabated products to the industry with a promise to clean it up later<\/a>.<\/p>\n So with all the good news, does this mean that these goals are aligned with heating of only 1.5\u00b0 Celsius. No, no they aren\u2019t. Still well off that requirement. Personally, I\u2019ve given up on 1.5\u00b0 in any event, so a hard-to-abate sector I spend a lot of time looking at getting good movement toward climate action for the first time is a win in my books.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a lot of low-hanging fruit in maritime emissions reductions. A lot of the 2030 targets can be met with in-hand efficiency measures, including just slowing down. Some of it can be met with biodiesel. Some more of it can be met with electrification, although the UMAS and UCL Energy Institute apparently don\u2019t know that batteries exist yet. They also think that ammonia made from green hydrogen is the preferred choice for low-carbon shipping fuels, so clearly they have some challenges with the basics of physics, economics, and operational safety. Nobody is perfect, and it\u2019s not like they are alone in their head-scratching perspective on both green hydrogen-derived fuels and ammonia in particular.<\/p>\n Are these targets binding? No, not a chance. But the IMO is influential, and this broad agreement among stakeholders will drive national and regional regulations around the world. Basically, the industry, countries, and shipping industry have stood up and said, \u201cthis is what we can do and what we want to do.\u201d Now it\u2019s up to countries and economic organizations like the EU to force them to do it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n There are a bunch of work items around interim measures and impact assessments that came out of this that will start to result in more details in the next three or four years. And the MEPC is meeting again in 2028 to work on the next round of these, something that will likely strengthen them.<\/p>\n Oh, and the MEPC results also include language about a just and equitable transition, which translates into at least a desire to assist the global south, which hasn\u2019t and isn\u2019t causing global warming for the most part, but is seeing massive impacts from it.<\/p>\n So, good news. Not perfect news. Not binding commitments. Not aligned with 1.5\u00b0. But much better than even was expected from early days at the event, where the daily reports suggested something as bad as the last COP in Glasgow was underway. As noted, a bunch of sinking nations forced the assembled group to step up. I\u2019m sure that there were individual heroes as well, people who were integral to forcing the reluctant group to consensus on firmer efforts.<\/p>\n And so, to the ICAO. Has the ICAO stepped up the way that the IMO just did? No, not yet.<\/p>\n ICAO graphic of aspiration to continue to be as big a climate change problem as they are today through 2050<\/p>\n<\/div>\n They are still rocking their very feeble 2019 aspirational goals of \u201c2% annual fuel efficiency improvement through 2050 and carbon neutral growth from 2020 onwards.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n What does that translate to? Well, it translates to the industry, which is responsible for about 5% of global warming emissions, saying that it\u2019s not going to stop doing that or reduce it in any way, but instead they\u2019ll grow rapidly, but all the new flights will be covered. Well, that\u2019s actually too strong a way to put it. What they are actually saying is that they\u2019ll grow as rapidly as possible, and have an aspiration to maintain the same massive emissions.<\/p>\n The ICAO has established the\u00a0Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation<\/a>\u00a0(CORSIA). Yeah, offsetting. The world is quickly realizing that offsetting has been a very poor solution, although it\u2019s still key to a lot of 2050 net zero claims.<\/p>\n Underwhelming.<\/p>\n Projection of aviation fuel demand by type through 2100, chart by Michael Barnard, Chief Strategist, TFIE Strategy Inc.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n I\u2019ve done a\u00a0projection through 2100<\/a>\u00a0of a scenario I think is more likely to happen in aviation. It\u2019s a lot less growth, and\u00a0batteries and biofuels<\/a>\u00a0for the win, in my opinion. A lot more batteries will be on a lot more planes in hybrid and auxiliary power models in the coming years, and 3,000 kilometers of range on batteries alone is likely viable in the late 2030s. There are a lot of electric aerospace startups, including\u00a0FLIMAX<\/a>, which I\u2019m on the advisory board of, and there are a lot of biofuels flowing into aircraft already. As I noted recently when talking about the\u00a0many pathways to biofuels<\/a>, Neste just turned on another 1.3 million tons of biofuel production in Singapore, with a million of those tons devoted to SAF biofuels for aircraft flying out of Changi.<\/p>\n But the ICAO isn\u2019t helping the industry get there. Unlike the maritime industry, the aviation industry hasn\u2019t stood up to be counted on the climate action file. That will be a problem for them unless they change that quickly<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After the past three years, pretty much everyone on Earth now knows what the UN WHO (World Health Organization) is, even if some people have a very odd idea of what it does. A lot fewer people know what another two UN agencies, the IMO and ICAO, are and do. And we should, because their …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7211,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpscppro_dont_share_socialmedia":false,"_wpscppro_custom_social_share_image":0,"_facebook_share_type":"","_twitter_share_type":"","_linkedin_share_type":"","_pinterest_share_type":"","_linkedin_share_type_page":"","_instagram_share_type":"","_medium_share_type":"","_threads_share_type":"","_google_business_share_type":"","_selected_social_profile":[],"_wpsp_enable_custom_social_template":false,"_wpsp_social_scheduling":{"enabled":false,"datetime":null,"platforms":[],"status":"template_only","dateOption":"today","timeOption":"now","customDays":"","customHours":"","customDate":"","customTime":"","schedulingType":"absolute"},"_wpsp_active_default_template":true},"categories":[102,88],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured-en","category-flights"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"ICAO](\"https:\/\/cleantechnica.com\/files\/2023\/07\/CAEP11-Trends-CO2-v9-5.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"Projection](\"https:\/\/cleantechnica.com\/files\/2022\/10\/5af13c7c20729cf546c43c98781c400dbfecf3f4-1920x1080-1.png\")
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