14 DAY TRIAL // EU and United States representatives declared that reaching an international climate deal this year in Durban is not "realistically possible."
The states' officials plan to meet in Durban, South Africa, to discuss and apply at an international level initiatives to regulate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
Despite the fact that the two sides can't seem to reach to a mutual conclusion, the industry is presently developing new effective means of accelerating the commercialization of carbon-neutral technologies.
Such a process if quite well reflected in aviation, where experts are trying to rely on the usage of biofuel, a much greener alternative than the traditional fuel.
Even though airlines have only a 2% contribution to the entire amount of greenhouse gas released in the atmosphere, such a strategy represents a great step ahead towards air quality preservation.
It's part of a much more ambitious plan, since representatives from such enterprises talk about their intention of reducing the amount of GHG by 50%, until 2050.
It sounds almost unrealistic if we think about the fact that previous studies showed that the industry has to deal with a growth of the CO2 emissions, that tend to to increase by 3.1 percent annually in the next 40 years.
After doing the math, we would obtain a 300 percent increase in GHG until 2050, so the companies' intention to reduce their carbon footprint would be quite beneficial in these circumstances.
The European Union’s “Aviation Amendments” supports such a ambitious strategy, throughout its GHG emissions trading system (ETS). Airline companies would have to comply with the ETS if they still want to preserve their EU routes.
Studies showed that, once this legal frame is adopted by major companies, even by those who think such regulations are illegal, such as China, the US, or India, would have to take $15 billion out of their pockets, until 2020, to comply with the emission trading system.
Even though ETS might stimulate the production of biofuels coming from algae or plants such as Camelina or Jatropha, the real challenge is to manufacture alternative fuel on a large scale, in order to respond effectively to the enormous demand of commercial airlines.
The green fuel has a lot of potential, but it won't be able to replace the petroleum-based fuel unless manufacturers will be able to come up with a significant quantity for the airline industry.