The aviation sector met the week before last to discuss how best to improve its fuel efficiency, both in the shorter and longer term, and agreed to an ambitious goal of halving the industry’s emissions by 2050 compared to 2005. Representatives from the world’s major airlines, aircraft manufacturers, air navigation service providers and airports, met between 7-9 October in Montreal at a meeting of the UN’s International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO).

In order to achieve the intended goal, the sector has pledged to improve fuel efficiency in aeroplanes by 1.5% per year until 2020, which actually falls short of the 2% target previously agreed and set by governments in ICAO. However the industry argues that setting targets too high in the short term would in fact be counterproductive, until sufficient public money has gone into infrastructure investment and research into second-generation biofuels.

Nevertheless the longer term targets seem to be an indication that the sector is serious about cleaning itself up, and indeed director-general of IATA (International Air Transport Association), Giovanni Bisignani, has noted that it is ‘ironic that industry is setting tougher targets for itself than its regulators are prepared to require’.

This is likely to put pressure on the EU for additional funding for the sector, as secretary-general of AeroSpace and Defence Industries Association of Europe (ASD), François Gayet explained. ‘Unfortunately, we were recently puzzled to see that the preliminary draft general budget of the European Union for 2010 calls for a reduction in funding for aerospace research and development. This is certainly not the right decision to take if we are serious about developing radically greener technologies on this continent’.