The European Commission's White Paper on transport, unveiled last week, sets out broad environmental targets for 2050 but does not break down the expected pollution cuts by sector.
Sandro Santamato, head of the alternative fuel policy unit at the Commission's transport department, told EurActiv that "CO2 emissions from aviation will not decrease by 60% but by only 34% between 2005 and 2050".
Other transport sectors will be measured against a 1990 baseline but in the 15 years to 2005, air emissions soared by some 81%. So the 2050 figure should be more easily achieved for airlines.
On current trends, there should be a 64% increase in aviation emissions by 2050 due to increased air traffic, Santamato said. But gains of -54% and -44% are expected from efficiency improvements and low-carbon fuels respectively, he explained.
Taken together, the Commission says these numbers would add up to the 34% reduction.
The low-carbon fuels target would result from a second or third-generation biokerosene that would "come to the market on a commercial scale after 2035," Santamato predicted.
All the while, efficiency gains would accrue at 1% a year, which according to the Commission’s analysis would add up to -54%.
However, some of these objectives appear out of reach to industry. One senior airlines industry executive, who wished to remain anonymous, said that the efficiency targets were realistic, but that the overall aim of reducing net emissions by 34% was not.
Aviation CO2 pollution made up some 12.5% of the EU's total transport emissions in 2007.
Biofuels' contribution under question
Meanwhile, some research on biofuels' contribution to curbing airline emissions appears to contradict the Commission's calculations.
UK government source material quoted – but not footnoted – in the White Paper working document disputes whether biofuels can provide more than a quarter of the Commission's projected share of the jet fuel mix by 2050.
According to the document, it is "not prudent to assume that biofuels in 2050 could account for more than 10% of global aviation fuel".
It further cautions against grounding policy decisions on "speculative future technological breakthroughs," such as a 60% fuel efficiency saving by 2050.
The Commission explained that the report, titled 'Meeting the UK aviation target – options for reducing emissions to 2050', was just one of many used to give a ballpark range of biofuel predictions.
"It's important to say that this White Paper is based on our own modelling," Santamato underlined. Other predictions were "less optimistic," he admitted, "but I think we have a more complete approach".
The Commission's line is that 10% of aviation emissions cuts will come from the SESAR (Single European Sky Air Traffic Management Research) programme, more will come from innovatory fuel efficiencies and crucially, from scaling up low-carbon sustainable biofuels to 40% of the fuel mix by 2050.
Aviation biofuels dependent on subsidies
Alexandre Dossat, a spokesman for the Aerospace and Defence Industries Association of Europe, said that meeting the Commission's biofuels targets would depend on a roll-out of government subsidies and incentives.
"It's difficult to give a date for when it could happen because there are a lot of question marks," he said last week over the phone from the Aerodays 2011 conference in Madrid.
"We can adhere to the objective of providing 40% of Europe's jet fuel from biofuel by 2050 but again it depends on a lot of factors and is not something that the aviation sector can guarantee."
Simon McNamara, deputy director-general of the European Regions Airline Association, put it more bluntly: "It depends on how willing the supply industry is to invest in producing the biofuels to meet the demand from airlines."
Last week, Airbus established a biokerosene plant in Romania, aiming to produce an aviation biofuel from the camelina plant refined by UOP, a few days after the first successful flight of a military plane using the fuel at supersonic speeds.
But "there just isn't access to jet biofuels in the quantities required at this time," complained Chris Goater, a spokesman for the International Air Transport Association. "It takes time to put the infrastructure in place so much as airlines might want it there won't be enough of it available [to meet the 2050 target]."
On the way to 2050, the White Paper, which was launched by Transport Commissioner Siim Kallas on 28 March, also foresees CO2 emissions from transport falling to 20% below 2008 levels by 2030.
Adding things up
But the wider question remains how the Commission can reconcile the White Paper's predictions of a potential doubling of European flight activity by 2050 with a 34% cut in aviation emissions.
Journalists scratched their heads when Commissioner Kallas reminded them on 28 March that "increasing transport at the same time as reducing CO2 emissions is a very radical and ambitious target".
His spokesperson, Helen Kearns, noted that the maths used in the White Paper's sums was also based on existing air traffic management commitments.
"SESAR alone should reduce 10km off most flight journeys with a corresponding decrease in emissions," she said, adding that the Commission hoped more passengers would choose rail over airplanes for short-haul journeys.
Questioned by EurActiv though, Commissioner Kallas sounded a more cautious note about this. "It depends on the quality of services," he said. "We don't want to force anybody to make a choice but to create a practical alternative."
For environmentalists, such talk smacks of evading a necessary management of consumer demand.
"The Commission is only looking for technical innovations and not a change of behaviour," said Michael Cramer, a German Green MEP on the European Parliament's transport committee.
"It is not possible to cut emissions and expand air traffic," he told EurActiv.
Cramer also called for ending what he called a €30 billion subsidy to the aviation industry through its exemptions from paying kerosene tax or VAT on international flights.
"You can see how crazy, irrational and stupid our transport system is in Europe," he sighed.
Arguably, the Commission has at least displayed a commitment to transparency by releasing details of how a 64% increase in air traffic can add up to a 34% reduction in emissions.
But the aviation material discussed by Santamato has not been disclosed in the Commission documentation, "because in general we do not take a sectoral approach," Santamato said.
Journalists may still be scratching their heads.
