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Frequently Asked Questions |
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Why is EUROCONTROL involved in Environment?
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Aviation brings many positive contributions to society’s sustainability such as employment, economic development, mobility and leisure, poverty reduction and cultural enrichment.
But these benefits are made more fragile by aviation’s environmental impacts both in terms of adversely affecting the quality of life of citizens and the economic burden associated with human health and welfare. The regulatory and policy response to these adverse impacts can include capacity constraints, non-optimal aircraft operations, increased costs and reduced efficiency. Air Traffic Management (ATM) and the ATM network/system can play a major role in determining the impact of aircraft (i.e. where, when and how they are flown). But at present the response to this challenge varies enormously across Europe and some solutions need a Europe-wide and international level scope.
ATM will only optimise its contribution to minimising adverse impacts through collaboration both between operational stakeholders and with the external framework. EUROCONTROL has a significant role in spreading best practice, supporting the development of new practice, helping to avoid bad practice and poor trade-offs, and helping to develop and harmonise pan-European, pan-ATM stakeholder solutions.
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How much of a priority is environment for EUROCONTROL and ATM?
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Environmental issues at and around airports are a key and growing constraint on the European ATM system. The adverse impacts of air transport degrade people’s quality of life and constitute a growing European economic burden. Across ECAC States these internal (ATM) and external (Society) costs run to hundreds of million of EURO per annum.
Environment Objectives for the EUROCONTROL Organisation and Agency are highlighted in the Revised Convention (article 1) and the ATM 2000+ Strategy. The Member States have made environmental protection part of EUROCONTROL’s mission through their approval in April 2001 of the EUROCONTROL Environmental Policy and Strategy.
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Why is environmental management good for ATM?
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• ATM is part of society and must act responsibly to have a long term future.
• Reduced use of environmental capacity frees up room for sustainable growth.
• It can help to avoid or alleviate environmental constraints.
• It can help to optimise throughput within existing environmental constraints.
• It can help cost efficiency initiatives; or be one in its own right.
• It can reduce mitigation costs such as the number of houses requiring sound insulation.
• It allows us to negotiate our capacity/licence to operate more effectively.
• It reduces societal costs and hence improve disposable income on which our industry depends.
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Is EUROCONTROL just working on environment because its expected from large organisations?
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No! It is essential that we are proactive in supporting ATM to effectively manage environmental issues. Adverse environmental impacts from aircraft operations (ie ATM relevant) may include:
• Annoyance and Disturbance;
• Stress;
• Loss of amenity (garden, speech open windows);
• Cardiovascular harm;
• Respiratory harm;
• Longer term health effects;
• Educational facility reduction;
• Reduced house prices;
• Climate change (drought, storms, floods, habitat loss etc);
• Loss of land amenity.
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ICAO, ECAC and the EU all deal with Aviation and the Environment, why Environment must be dealt with by EUROCONTROL? What is EUROCONTROL's value added?
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Article 1 of the EUROCONTROL Revised Convention foresees "... the need to minimise, where this is feasible, inter alia, in operational, technical and economic terms, any adverse environmental impact". In addition Environment is a Key Performance Area and Business Objective of the EUROCONTROL Organisation. EUROCONTROL provides a pan-European and independent view with a unique civil/military interface and, through its operational services, avails of a unique air traffic data source in Europe which allows the best estimates of environmental/sustainability impacts of air traffic (e.g. noise load, fuel burn and GHG emissions through the PAGODA facility).
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What effect does 'Environment' have on ATM?
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ATM, and in particular Airports, are becoming increasingly regulated on environmental grounds. Aircraft noise, especially at night, has resulted in restrictions on operations while jet-engine emissions of NOX and SOX affect local air quality and could lead to further constraints. In some cases this has led to curtailment of growth to the ATM business. Climate change has been linked to aircraft contrails that form ice crystals leading to cirrus cloud cover.
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Is Environment just an ATM constraint?
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No! Successful (collaborative) management of environmental impacts can help to underpin bids for capacity improvement and can help to avoid unnecessary constraint or imposed solutions that are not optimised or worse, counter productive.
Efficiency improvements often have un-claimed environmental efficiency benefits (e.g. reduced fuel use often means reduced atmospheric emissions). Some environmental improvements can be achieved without reduction in capacity or efficiency.
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Are there other factors to balance against environment?
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Yes! We should only consider environment alongside social and economic factors.
Society demands fast, efficient, safe and secure public transport for people and goods which in turn depends on ATM. Air Transport fulfils that need, especially over longer distances and for island and peninsular states and demand is growing steadily.
ATM therefore facilitates many positive contributions to society including employment, economic development, mobility and leisure, poverty reduction and cultural enrichment.
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Is aviation industry sustainable?
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The concept of sustainability has become of paramount importance to many businesses. New opportunities arise, new risks have to be dealt with and new sustainability-driven trends are consequently making their impact on market competition. More and more companies are now turning to corporate sustainability as their new business approach. They integrate economic, environmental and social criteria into strategy and management. They pursue opportunities and manage risks that accompany sustainability trends. The aviation industry must be aware of the opportunities and risks.
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What is the KYOTO Protocol?
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The Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) entered into force on Wednesday 16 February 2005. It is the first international treaty designed to reduce Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions, of which Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is the most widely known example.
Developed countries, as listed in Annex I to the UNFCCC and which are Parties to the Protocol, must achieve a total cut in their GHG emissions of at least 5% from 1990 levels in the commitment period 2008-2012. Developing countries do not yet have to take emissions reduction measures. Parties to the Protocol are obliged to submit annual greenhouse gas emissions inventories to the UNFCCC. These inventories must include emissions from domestic aviation.
Emissions from international aviation and maritime transportation (also known as international bunker fuel emissions) are reported separately and are not subject to the limitation and reduction commitments of Annex I Parties. ICAO has been specifically tasked under the Protocol with developing policies and measures to control aviation’s international bunker fuel emissions.
The European Union (EU) has already implemented legislation to bring the Protocol’s various emissions reduction instruments into effect. The EU’s goal is to reduce emissions by 8% below 1990 levels for the EU-15 States in the period 2008-2012. The European Commission (EC) reports in its “Winning the Battle Against Global Climate Change” Communication of 9 February 2005, that a 3% reduction has already been achieved.
One of the Kyoto Protocol’s emissions reduction instruments is emissions trading. The EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) started on 1 January this year for 12,000 “point source emitters”, principally industrial and power generation facilities (including some at certain airports). A market for industry to trade permits to generate carbon dioxide is now reality.
Aviation is not included in the EU ETS. However, the European Commission is undertaking a study into how aviation’s national and international emissions within the EU could be included in the second phase of the ETS from 2008 onwards. EUROCONTROL, via its Memorandum of Co-operation with the EC, is supporting this work.
The European Commission's study will be a prime source of analysis for a Communication from the Commission currently in preparation concerning market-based options to control/reduce aviation’s environmental impact. Alternative marked-based options which have already been assessed by the EC include aviation environmental taxes and aviation environmental charges. The Communication is scheduled for release later this year. Whichever option is chosen, it will certainly have an impact on airspace users, Air Traffic Management and hence EUROCONTROL.
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What is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)?
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The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) formed the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1988. The IPCC represents the collective work of over 2,000 scientists, principally in the atmospheric sciences, but also comprising social, economic and other environmental components potentially impacted by climate change. Between its three Working Groups, the IPCC assesses the scientific and socioeconomic aspects of human-induced climate change, as well as options for greenhouse gas reduction and other forms of climate change mitigation.
The IPCC neither conducts original research nor monitors climate-related data, but its periodic assessment reports and technical papers play a very important role in the creation of climate change policies worldwide. The IPCC was instrumental in establishing the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC or the Convention) in 1992. In 1995, the IPCC concluded in its Second Assessment Report that “Global mean surface temperature has increased by between about 0.3 and 0.6°C since the late 19th century, a change that is unlikely to be entirely natural in origin. The balance of evidence, from changes in global mean surface air temperature and from changes in geographical, seasonal and vertical patterns of atmospheric temperature, suggests a discernible human influence on global climate.” This conclusion is sometimes credited as being the political impetus that eventually created the Kyoto Protocol.
From the aviation perspective, the IPCC has proved extremely influential in assessing the industry's impact in the environment. The IPCC provided the means through which a Special Report on Aviation and the Global Atmosphere was published in 1999. The Special Report was prepared by the IPCC at the request of the International Civil Aviation Organization and the Parties to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer. It is basically the point from which all discussions on aviation's impact on climate change start. EUROCONTROL was pleased to contribute to that report, providing a Lead Author on Chapter 8: Air Transport Operations and Relation to Emissions.
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How are greenhouse gas emissions measured?
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Direct measurement not being feasible, greenhouse gas emissions are estimated based on air traffic movement data and modelling of the related fuel consumption and pollutant emissions.
The ENV Domain within the Directorate of ATM Strategies, and the PRISME Data Warehouse team within the Directorate of ATM Programmes, are currently working on the PAGODA project to develop a new facility to estimate the fuel burnt and GHG emitted from all flights within the CFMU area. The PAGODA service prototype is being used to provide the Commission with the key datasets that are essential to carrying out the policy scenarios specified within the study.
EUROCONTROL has already provided estimates of fuel burnt and greenhouse gases emitted for the years 2002, 2003 and 2004 and is currently working on supplying complex sets of data to support the various “emissions allocation options” that the UNFCCC has studied and the EC is considering for the ETS.
PAGODA implements an aircraft fuel burn and emissions methodology approved by the ECAC Directors-General; it uses archived flight plans from the CFMU as the basis for the calculations. The PAGODA service is scheduled to go live at the end of 2005. It will also provide results based on a batch version of the Advanced Emissions Model (AEM) developed within the Society, Environment, Economics research area at the EUROCONTROL Experimental Centre. AEM was used to estimate the environmental benefits of RVSM, and will be similarly applied to the 8.33kHz vertical expansion and DMEAN programmes.
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What is Emissions Trading?
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Under the KYOTO Protocol, nations that exceeded their emissions quota are permitted to buy any 'spare' capacity from those nations that reduced their own emissions more than their target. Some poorer nations that have low emissions can gain economic benefit from the more polluting nations. Each nation has an 'allocated amount' of the six major greenhouse gases. Aviation was exempted from the system but there is strong pressure to bring it in – the EU is currently working on a scheme. In some states allocations have been divided amongst individual industries or economic sectors.
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