Ex-BA boss: drop green aviation policies if costs
outweigh benefits
Willie Walsh, now boss of Iata, also calls for more
investment in sustainable aviation fuels
Jack
Simpson
Mon 3 Jun
2024 14.29 BST
Green
aviation policies should be abandoned if the costs outweigh the benefits, the
head of the world’s most influential airlines body has said.
Willie
Walsh, the director general of the International Air Transport Association
(Iata) and a former British Airways boss, said achieving net zero by 2050 was
“existential, not optional”.
However, he
also suggested governments should have the courage to stop green policies and
change tack if they were not producing the intended results.
The
comments came as part of Walsh’s keynote speech at Iata’s annual general
meeting in Dubai on Monday, in which the body revealed that the global aviation
sector would achieve a net profit of more than $30bn (£24bn) this year, up by
$3bn on last year’s figure.
Part of
Walsh’s speech focused on current approaches to decarbonise the aviation sector
and tackle the climate crisis, in which he hit out against green levies on the
sector.
He said
more taxes were not the solution to achieving net zero and that the current
“parade of fragmented green tax proposals” were prohibiting people from flying
sustainably and grounding all but the rich.
Walsh put
forward eight approaches that he argued would improve the world’s progress
towards greener aviation, which included a call for provisions to be put in
place that would allow certain green policies to be reviewed and scrapped if
they did not work.
“Measures
must have provisions for review and abandonment if they are not producing the
intended results,” he said. “Some good ideas will certainly translate into good
policies. And many may not.
“When a
policy has clearly failed – especially when costs outweigh benefits –
regulators must have the courage to stop, and change tack fast.”
Walsh said
the global industry needed global solutions and Iata would be pushing for
globally recognised and accepted rules to reduce carbon emissions, while also
calling for measures be put in place to direct more fossil fuel investment into
sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs).
A number of
countries are bringing in SAF mandates, which put requirements on providers to
use a certain percentage of the fuel in their aircraft.
SAFs can be
sourced from food-waste oil and fats, green and municipal waste and non-food
crops, and it is claimed they could cut emissions by 80% compared with
traditional fuels. However, critics say hopes for the technology are overblown,
with a report by the Institute for Policy Studies thinktank arguing efforts to
bring SAFs up to scale are too far off track to avert the climate crisis.
The UK is
poised to pass its own SAF mandate in January next year, which will put in
place laws that require 2% of all jet fuel used by airlines to come from
sustainable and low-carbon sources by the end of 2025, and 10% by 2030. SAF now
equates to just more than 0.5% of the globe’s fuel needs.
Walsh said
these mandates faced a number of problems, with governments sometimes mandating
airlines to buy SAF in quantities that did not exist. He said this often
resulted in producers being hit with fines and passing them on to airlines.
“We
witnessed this in France where fuel suppliers are happy to accept penalties for
their failure to supply the SAF mandate. They simply exercise their monopoly
power and pass those costs on [to] airlines. This must be stopped,” he said.
Iata
revealed that airlines would probably reach profits of $30.5bn in 2024, up from
the $27.4bn that are estimated for 2023. This was also up on the $25.7bn
forecast for 2024 in December this year.
It also
forecast record revenues of $1tn for the sector but this would be partly offset
by record expenses of $946bn.
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