Airlines To Join Climate Change Fight
This week sees a forum on climate change at the United Nations headquarters in New York. The forum will try to get some agreements between countries on climate change before the global warming summit in Copenhagen in December.
The British Airways chief executive, Willie Walsh is to announce at the forum that airlines and airports will agree to halve emissions from 2005 levels by 2050, reports telegraph.co.uk.
Willie Walsh will announce the pledges on behalf of the International Air Transport Association. They include reducing net carbon dioxide emissions by 50% by 2050, making all industry growth carbon-neutral by 2020, cutting carbon dioxide emissions by 1.5% over the next ten years and submitting plans for joining a global carbon trading scheme to the UN by the end of 2009.
The Guardian reports that Willie Walsh will say: “International aviation emissions were not included in the Kyoto protocol 12 years ago. Now we have a chance to rectify that omission, and we must seize it. Our proposals represent the most environmentally effective and practical means of reducing aviation’s carbon impact. They are the best option for the planet and we urge the UN to adopt them.”
It’s also believed that the forum at the United Nations will see China outline measures that they will take to combat climate change.
Source and further details: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/6216647/Airlines-to-halve-emissions-by-2050-British-Airways-boss-Willie-Walsh-to-announce.html