Governments have been urged to put in place ¡°large-scale¡± incentives to encourage the use of sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) by airlines association IATA, during its annual general meeting in Doha.
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IATA said that the use of SAF would play a leading part in the industry¡¯s commitment to achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050, with sustainable fuel set to account for 65 per cent of aviation¡¯s carbon mitigation in the next 30 years.
This would require the creation of 449 billion litres of SAF around the world ¨C currently annual SAF production is only at 125 million litres a year with investment set to increase this to 5 billion litres annually by 2025. IATA added that ¡°effective government initiatives¡± would boost production to 30 billion litres per year by 2030.
Willie Walsh, IATA¡¯s director general, said: ¡°Incentives to transition electricity production to renewable sources like solar or wind worked. As a result, clean energy solutions are now cheap and widely available.?
¡°With similar incentives for SAF, we could see 30 billion litres available by 2030. Though still far from where we need to be, it would be a clear tipping point towards our net zero ambition of ample SAF quantities at affordable prices.¡±
IATA praised the US for introducing ¡°heavy government incentives¡± for SAF production, but criticised Europe as the ¡°example not to follow¡± because of the EU insisting on SAF being used at every airport across member states.
¡°Under its Fit for 55 initiative, the EU is planning to mandate that airlines uplift 5 per cent SAF at every European airport by 2030,¡± added IATA. ¡°Decentralising production will delay the development of economies of scale and forcing the land transport of SAF will reduce the environmental benefit of using SAF.¡±
SAF has been in the spotlight at IATA¡¯s AGM this week, with American Express Global Business Travel announcing a partnership with energy giant Shell and Accenture to create the Avelia ¡°book-and-claim¡± platform allowing corporate clients to purchase the fuel.