Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

Hard News Hard Hitting News Source Global Political News

Business News

Airline CEOs, Biden Officials Consider Green-Fuel Breaks

FILE – In this Friday, Feb. 5, 2021 file photo, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg speaks at Union Station in Washington. Airline officials are talking to the Biden administration about support for incentives to use cleaner fuels for airplanes. Leaders of several of the largest U.S. passenger and cargo airlines held an online meeting Friday, Feb. 26, 2021 with White House climate adviser Gina McCarthy and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.(AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)

Chief executives of the nation’s largest passenger and cargo airlines met with key Biden administration officials Friday to talk about reducing emissions from airplanes and push incentives for lower-carbon aviation fuels.

The White House said the meeting with climate adviser Gina McCarthy and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg also touched on economic policy and curbing the spread of COVID-19 — travel has been a vector for the virus. But industry officials said emissions dominated the discussion.

United Airlines said CEO Scott Kirby asked administration officials to support incentives for sustainable aviation fuel and technology to remove carbon from the atmosphere. In December, United said it invested an undisclosed amount in a carbon-capture company partly owned by Occidental Petroleum.

A United Nations aviation group has concluded that biofuels will remain a tiny source of aviation fuel for several years. Some environmentalists would prefer the Biden administration to impose tougher emissions standards on aircraft rather than create breaks for biofuels.

“Biofuels are false solutions that don’t decarbonize air travel,” said Clare Lakewood, a climate-law official with the Center for Biological Diversity. “Real action on aircraft emissions requires phasing out dirty, aging aircraft, maximizing operational efficiencies and funding the rapid development of electrification.”

Airplanes account for a small portion of emissions that cause climate change — about 2% to 3% — but their share has been growing rapidly and is expected to roughly triple by mid-century with the global growth in travel.

The airline trade group says U.S. carriers have more than doubled the fuel efficiency of their fleets since 1978 and plan further reductions in carbon emissions. But the independent International Council on Clean Transportation says passenger traffic is growing nearly four times faster than fuel efficiency, leading to a 33% increase in emissions between 2013 and 2019.

The U.S. accounts for about 23% of aircraft carbon-dioxide emissions, followed by Europe at 19% and China at 13%, the transportation group’s researchers estimated.

The White House said McCarthy, Buttigieg and economic adviser Brian Deese were “grateful and optimistic” to hear the airline CEOs talk about current and future efforts to combat climate change.

Nicholas Calio, president of the trade group Airlines for America, said the exchange was positive.

“Airlines are ready, willing and able partners, and we want to be part of the solution” to climate change, Calio said in a statement. “We stand ready to work in partnership with the Biden administration.”

Copyright 2020 Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Source: https://apnews.com/article/scott-kirby-climate-climate-change-airlines-pete-buttigieg-6bed112b680f66762efe9a6ebf476c31

Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You May Also Like

Business News

PORT ANGELES, Wash. (AP) — Jeanette Kiokun, the tribal clerk for the Qutekcak Native Tribe in Alaska, doesn’t immediately recognize the shriveled, brown plant...

Business News

RENO, Nev. (AP) — Santos Brizuela spent more than two decades laboring outdoors, persisting despite a bout of heatstroke while cutting sugarcane in Mexico...

Environmental News

Scientists are wondering if global warming and El Nino have an accomplice in fueling this summer’s record-shattering heat. The European climate agency Copernicus reported that July...

Environmental News

Human-caused global warming made July hotter for four out of five people on Earth, with more than 2 billion people feeling climate change-boosted warmth daily, according...

Copyright © 2023 Hard News Herd Hitting in Your Face News Source | World News | Breaking News | US News | Political News Website by Top Search SEO