‘Relatively Stable’ Emissions? Airbus Says Innovation Can Offset Air Travel But the Record Isn’t Good
Photo Credit: Sustainable Aviation Fuel being put into an Airbus aircraft. Airbus
Skift Take
Airbus obviously can’t push for less air travel. But more efficient planes can only do so much to offset emissions from further growth.
At the Airbus Summit in France on Tuesday, Chief Sustainability Officer Julie Kitcher claimed that aviation emissions have remained “relatively stable” and that innovation could help offset the industry’s continued growth.
While steady as a share of total emissions, the record shows a rise in aviation emissions in the past three decades and there are several challenges to implementing new tools that make air travel more efficient.
Kitcher made her case on a panel discussing limiting the amount of flights to slow down emissions: “We’ve seen that over the decades, although air travel has doubled, actually the greenhouse gas emissions from aviation have remained relatively stable. So it shows that the technology and the measures that we’re implementing are offsetting the growth from aviation,” Kitcher said at the conference.
Kitcher added that rather than
