In separate presentations at Australia’s Avalon air show, Airbus and Boeing have underlined the importance of the aviation industry staying focused on the environment.
Stephen Forshaw, chief representative of Airbus in Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific, says that aviation has a pressing need to decarbonise, as only this will give it the “licence” to continue operating in the decades ahead, especially as consumers become more conscious about their carbon emissions.
He also observes that 80% of Australia’s jet fuel was imported in 2024, compared with just 50% a decade ago. This creates an energy security issue.
On how to resolve these issues, Forshaw says that Australia is extremely well placed to produce Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) given the ready availability of feedstocks.
In addition to providing energy security, a robust Australian SAF capability will also provide jobs and, most important, reduce the emissions associated with flying.
Boeing used the show to make a presentation about Cascade 2.0, a publicly available climate impact model that lets users adjust a range of variables to help map out the industry’s decarbonisation journey.
Demonstrating Cascade to reporters at Boeing’s stand, the company’s vice-president of environmental sustainability Ryan Faucett manipulated factors such as air traffic growth, fuel type, aircraft type, and operational efficiencies to help assess their long-term impact on reducing emissions.
By way of demonstration, he laid out one hypothetical whereby sustainable aviation fuel, offsets, new aircraft types, and operations combined to vastly reduce emissions by 2050.
Faucett says the tool can help policy makers and other industry participants gauge the impact of the various factors involved in the industry’s reduction of emissions.
“It paints a picture of exactly what it would take on all sets of removals to get all the way to net zero,” says Faucett.
Under IATA’s Net Zero 2050 goal, airlines hope to achieve net zero carbon emissions in global air transport by 2050 through sustainable aviation fuels, new technologies, operational efficiencies, and carbon offsetting.
