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The report, titled
Five Years to Chart a New Future for Aviation, outlines a five-year roadmap with four 2030 Sustainable Aviation Goals. These are specific actionable steps that must be initiated immediately and completed within five years to reach net zero by 2050.
The goals are:
1. Accelerate the deployment of a global contrail avoidance system
This could reduce aviation's climate impact by up to 40%, according to the report. It would need the immediate creation of experiments at the scale of whole regions to learn in real environments. "These labs must have the capability to test, learn, and pivot while operating within a realistic airspace environment," says the report.
2. Unlock efficiency gains
Implementing a new wave of policies aimed at unlocking system-wide efficiency gains could halve fuel burn by 2050, by tapping into efficiency gains that individual companies cannot reach on their own. "In 2025, leading governments should set out a clear commitment to the market about their intention to drive systems-wide efficiency improvements," the report says. "In tandem, governments and industry should work together to develop strategies so that, by 2030, a new wave of policies can be implemented to unlock these systemic efficiency gains."
3. Reform sustainable aviation fuel policies
"In 2025, governments should reform sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) policy development to adopt a cross-sector approach, enabling rapid scalability within global biomass limitations," the report says. "By 2030, governments and industry should implement a demonstration and deployment strategy that enables SAF production to move beyond purely biomass-based methods, incorporating more carbon-efficient synthetic production techniques."
4. Launch moonshots
New technologies will be needed to get aviation fully to net zero by 2050. The report recommends launching a number of 'moonshot' demonstration programmes to assess the viability and scalability of transformative technologies like cryogenic hydrogen or hydrogen-electric propulsion.
“Aviation stands at a pivotal moment, much like the automotive industry in the late 2000s," says Rob Miller, director of the University of Cambridge's Whittle Lab. "Back then, discussions centred around biofuels as the replacement for petrol and diesel - until Tesla revolutionised the future with electric vehicles. Our five-year plan is designed to accelerate this decision point in aviation, setting it on a path to achieve net-zero by 2050.”
Eliot Whittington, executive director at the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership says: “Too often the discussions about how to achieve sustainable aviation lurch between overly optimistic thinking about current industry efforts and doom-laden cataloguing of the sector’s environmental evils. The Aviation Impact Accelerator modelling has drawn on the best available evidence to show that there are major challenges to be navigated if we’re to achieve net zero flying at scale, but that it is possible. With focus and a step-change in ambition from governments and business we can address the hurdles, unlock sustainable flying – and in doing so, build new industries and support wider economic change.”
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