International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) Council Must Ditch Biofuel Plans and Abandon the Myth of 'Carbon Neutral' Growth
From 11th to 29th June 2018, the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) Council will be meeting in Montreal. High up on the agenda are proposed rules for a Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA). CORSIA is based on the false assumption that carbon emissions from the fast- growing aviation industry can be mitigated through carbon offsetting and biofuels.
During the High-Level ICAO Conference on “Sustainable Alternative Aviation Fuels” in October 2017, member states rejected proposed biofuel targets for aviation. At that time, 96 civil society groups had warned that such targets would lead to significantly further expansion of monoculture plantations — most likely oil palm plantations, and thus to more land-grabbing and food price volatility, more deforestation, more biodiversity destruction, more agrochemical use, and pollution of freshwater, without reducing the climate impacts of aviation.
Yet even without explicit targets, proposed CORSIA rules could open the door to large-scale use of biofuels in planes.
Proposed CORSIA rules would allow airlines to use any biofuels to try and meet ‘carbon neutral growth’ commitments from 2020, as long as they meet two extremely weak criteria, with no credible mechanism for enforcing even those. ICAO’s environment body had previously proposed 17 environmental and social criteria, which might at least have made it much more difficult for airlines to use palm oil. However, as a recent report by Changing Markets illustrates, there are serious inherent problems with relying on sustainability certification. In relation to palm oil, the report concludes, “none of the schemes has been effective at slowing down deforestation, peatland draining or the loss of biodiversity”.
The only type of biofuels suitable for aircraft that can be reliably produced at scale is based on Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil (HVO), and palm oil (including a fraction of palm oil falsely described as a residue or waste), is the favourite feedstock for HVO production because it is the cheapest vegetable oil on the world markets and the cheapest to refine.
ICAO’s biofuel plans therefore threaten to turn the aviation industry into a new driver of deforestation — as well as land-grabbing and land and human rights abuses. At the same time, they do nothing to address the ever-growing greenhouse gas emissions from aviation, linked to the industry’s unending growth.
It is even more worrying that — besides biofuels — ICAO’s CORSIA will allow airlines to achieve so-called “neutrality” through the use of carbon offsets. ICAO’s carbon offset plans were denounced by 80 civil society organisations in 2016. In January 2018, Virgin Atlantic pulled out of a forest carbon offset project in Cambodia after high levels of deforestation as well as serious human rights abuses were revealed in the project area — meaning the aviation emissions were not being offset at all. Unfortunately, this is far from an isolated incident, and airlines can expect more and more of these cases to be exposed as the industry’s use of offsets expands.
The future of offsetting is even further in doubt because achieving the goal of the Paris Agreement requires all states and all sectors to cut their emissions to zero. There is therefore no role for a mechanism where one sector avoids emission cuts by paying other sectors to cut theirs.
Finally, there are even proposals to allow fossil-fuels to be classified as ‘sustainable aviation fuels’ and to be credited under CORSIA. This could mean kerosene from oil refineries where heat and power come from burning wood, which is falsely classified as carbon neutral (which would put yet more pressures on forests) — or kerosene sourced from oil wells that require less energy to drill than others, would be classed as sustainable.
We urge the members of the ICAO Council to reject CORSIA mechanism, which is based on the false solutions of biofuels and offsetting plan — and which may even reward fossil fuel companies directly - and to take the aim of the Paris Climate Agreement to limit global warming to 1.5oC seriously, which cannot be achieved unless aviation growth is ended and reversed.
Signatories
International:
ETC Group
Friends of the Earth International
GAAM (Global Anti-Aerotropolis Movement)
Global Forest Coalition
IFOAM - Organics International
Plataforma Internacional contra la Impunidad
Third World Network
World Rainforest Movement
Regional:
Biofuelwatch, UK/US
Corporate Europe Observatory, Europe
EKOEnergy, Europe
Fern, Europe
National:
Abibiman Foundation, Ghana
Accion Ecologica, Ecuador
ActionAid USA
Amis de la Terre (Friends of the Earth), France
AFRICANDO, Spain
All India Movement of Forests, India
AMAF-Benin, Benin
Animals Tasmania, Australia
Arbeitskreis Regenwald und Artenschutz (ARA), Germany
Asociación Ambiente y Sociedad, Colombia
Asociación Red de Coordinación en Biodersidad, Costa Rica
Balkani Wildlife Society, Bulgaria
Brot für die Welt (Bread for the World), Germany
CAGNE (Communities Against Gatwick Noise and Emissions), UK
Campaign Against Climate Change, UK
Campaign for Climate Justice Network (CCJN), Nepal
Carbone Guinée, Guinea
CESTA (Friends of the Earth), El Salvador
CNCD-11.11.11, Belgium
Coalition for Rivers, Czech Republic
Colectivo Voces Ecológicas (COVEC), Panama
Comité Nacional para loa Defensa y Conservación de los Chimalapas, Mexico
Coordinadora de Pueblos y Organizaciones del Oriente del Estado de México en defensa de la Tierra, el Agua y su Cultura, Mexico
Corner House, UK
Denkhaus Bremen, Germany
Dogwood Alliance, USA
Ecologistas en Accion, Spain
Econexus, UK
Energie Hunger - Nein Danke!, Germany
Estonian Forest Aid (MTÜ Eesti Metsa Abiks), Estonia
FASE (Federação de Órgãos para Assistência Social e Educacional), Brazil
FDCL (Forschungs- und Dokumentationszentrum Chile-Lateinamerika e.V.), Germany
Finance & Trade Watch, Austria
Fórum da Amazônia Oriental (FAOR), Brazil
Forum Ökologie & Papier, Germany
Foro de Cambios Climáticos y Justicia Social (FMCJS), Brazil
Frente Amplio no Partidista en contra del Nuevo Aeropuerto y otros Megaproyectos en la Cuenca del Valle de Mexico, Mexico
Friends of the Earth Bosnia and Herzegovina
Friends of the Earth Ghana
Friends of the Earth Malaysia
Friends of the Earth US
Fundación del Río, Nicaragua
Global Justice Ecology Project, USA
Grupo Carta de Belém (GCB), Brazil
Indigenous Perspectives, India
KRUHA Indonesia (People’s Coalition for the Right to Water), Indonesia
Koordinierungsstelle der Österreichischen Bischofskonferenz für internationale Entwicklung und Mission (KOO), Austria
Maderas del Pueblo del Sureste, AC, Oaxaca-Chiapas, Mexico
Mangrove Action Project, US
Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns, USA
Milieudefensie (Friends of the Earth), Netherlands
Movimiento de los Pequeños Agricultores (MPA), Brazil
NOAH (Friends of the Earth), Denmark
Otros Mundos A.C./Amigos de la Tierra (Friends of the Earth), Mexico
Oui au train de nuit, France
Pro Natura (Friends of the Earth, Switzerland
Pro Regenwald, Germany
Pro Wildlife, Germany
Proyecto Gran Simio (GAP/PGS), Spain
Quercus, Portugal
Oakland Institute, USA
Partnership for Policy Integrity, USA
Pivot Point, USA
Pastoral de la Tierra del Vicariato Apostólico de Yurimaguas, Peru
Rådet for bæredygtig trafik (Council for Sustainable Transport), Denmark
Rainforest Foundation UK
Regenwald-Institut e.V., Germany
Restore: The North Woods, USA
Rettet den Regenwald e.V., Germany
Robin Wood, Germany
Salva la Selva, Spain
Save America’s Forests, USA
Sequoia ForestKeeper, USA
Tanzania Alliance for Biodiversity, Tanzania
Tourism Investigation & Monitoring Team, Thailand
ZERO - Association for the Sustainability of the Earth System, Portugal