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billion in 2025 – mean it is impossible for IATA to say whether or how individual airlines will choose to pass the costs on to their passengers. At about 1 per cent of revenues, the cost is significant, but manageable. Importantly, CORSIA gives airlines a level playing field and political certainty, in order to plan investment decisions appropriately. Businesses prefer to have the consistency and certainty of a single global scheme that is equal for everyone, rather than a patchwork of different national and regional taxes and economic instruments. COMPROMISEThe inevitability of a global approach is that different perspectives are adopted by different groups. The business of negotiating a way forward on the GMBM required compromise on the details while never losing sight of the principles of global consistency and meeting the targets.It became clear that a carbon offset scheme was best-suited to meet the conditions required for the GMBM. It could draw on an established set of principles and trusted carbon credits. But could all states agree? And how could the special circumstances of some states be accommodated?A crucial compromise, borrowed from the successful Paris negotiations, was to move to voluntary involvement in the first phase of the CORSIA (2021-2026) before it becomes mandatory in subsequent years. And by the time that the Assembly concluded, 65 states covering about 80 per cent of the industry’s international emissions had volunteered to join the scheme. Many of these would have normally been excluded by virtue of their size or stage of development. Impressively they understood the need for leadership on sustainability. And the industry continues to encourage more states to join. We believe many more will be convinced to do so before the scheme comes into effect in 2020.SUSTAINABLY DEVELOPING THE BUSINESS OF FREEDOMCORSIA is only one pillar of our emissions strategy. But the scheme does have the potential to help spur the further development of Sustainable Alternative Fuels (SAF), particularly by encouraging increased supply. SAFs – which we are clear must not harm biodiversity or compete with food production – offer one of the best solutions for aviation’s longer-term carbon challenge. With up to 80 per cent reductions in carbon over the lifecycle of the fuel, SAFs could be a game changer for the industry in terms of carbon intensity. We are also seeing the development of new technology. Who knows where battery, solar, and fuel-cell technology will take us in the coming decades? While a completely solar-powered passenger-carrying plane may never be realized for commercial operations, such technology does have the potential to power other systems on board, reducing fossil fuel burn. Industry efforts to cut weight and improve aerodynamics are also going to keep delivering incremental improvements.While we appreciate the historic steps taken by governments at ICAO, there remains much that they can do at national and regional level, particularly with regard to air traffic management. Projects to make air routes more direct, such as the Single European Sky, NextGen in the US, and the Seamless Asian Sky, have the potential to cut fuel burn by 10 per cent or more. That would make a significant contribution to our emissions reduction targets. The technology exists – it just needs the political leadership to make it happen.And it is partnership in leadership that may well be the ultimate lesson of the CORSIA story. Leadership from governments and leadership from industry working to common goals. I am proud to represent, lead and serve an industry that has taken decisive climate action in partnership with governments. Working together, we have delivered real change and put aviation on the path to genuine sustainability. CORSIA is important because the future of aviation is important. Air transport is an essential driver of prosperity and innovation across the world, supporting 63 million jobs and US$2.7 trillion in economic development. Sustainability is aviation’s 2007 ICAO agrees 4 pillar strategy 2010 ICAO agrees targets 2013 ICAO agrees to develop GMBM 2016 ICAO agrees the CORSIA090 TRANSPORT AND MOBILITY
