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SANE (Sustainable Aviation Network Europe) is hosting the international conference ‘Sustainable Aviation: Climate and Sound in Perspective’. The objective is to look ahead to the possibilities for the future based on what has been achieved in the past. The aviation industry has an innate drive for improvement, but might this be stimulated further? For instance with initiatives like The Clean Sky from both the European Commission and the aviation industry, which aims to develop “green” aviation technologies. It must, however, be remembered that policies that hamper innovation, such as taxes on kerosene, also have a strong impact on the process.
Climate
The global demand for air traffic increases by approximately 5% annually. This increase exceeds the expected efficiency improvements of 1.3% annually, leading to increased CO2 emissions from aviation. Currently the IPCC estimates that the share of the aviation industry in total human-induced CO2 emission is 2%. This share will have risen to 3% by 2050.
Since there already exists a strong drive to increase efficiency in the aviation industry, increasing the expense of air traffic does not help to bring down CO2 emissions. What will be helpful is the inclusion of aviation in the European Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS), as the European Parliament resolved to do at the end of last year.
Noise
Compared to other large European airports, a relatively small number of people actually experience high sound levels in the vicinity of Schiphol Amsterdam Airport. Yet there is a high number of complaints about noise around Schiphol. The reason for this is that the annoyance experienced is not only caused by actual airplane sound. Where annoyance is concerned, non-acoustic factors play at least as important a part as decibels. As a result, the Dutch government’s 2006 Schiphol policy made a clear distinction between actual sound levels and noise annoyance.
The conference will a.o. address the following topics:
- The importance of emissions trading and a single European sky for the reduction of aviation’s CO2 footprint
- What does the American airline industry think of emissions trading?
- The benefits of algae as a form of biofuel, and its potential for aviation
- Dealing with conflicting measures against noise and greenhouse gas emissions
- What is noise annoyance?
- A practical example demonstrating how to effectively take on noise annoyance
Audience:
The conference is intended for politicians, policy makers, NGOs, the aviation sector, the media, and other parties with an interest in sustainable aviation (particularly in the issues of sound and climate).
More information can be found at the SANE website.
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