Global airlines must toughen climate change targets, warns industry boss

Global airlines must adopt tougher rules on reducing carbon emissions once flying restarts after the coronavirus crisis, the head of the industry’s trade body has warned. The IATA is in talks with its members, nearly 300 carriers around the world, over new climate change pledges, CE Alexandre de Juniac said. An ambitious pledge to commit to net zero carbon emissions by 2050 may form part of a declaration at the trade body’s annual meeting in June, de Juniac said. This would mark a bold step up from the industry’s current targets, set in 2009, that include halving 2005 emissions by 2050 and carbon neutral growth after 2020. “The crisis has not diverted us from sticking to these commitments and we have not changed anything, but we think that we should probably go further, so we are working on that.” Although de Juniac cautioned there was no guarantee carriers would reach agreement on net zero carbon emissions, he said the need for action had grown over the past decade. “That is a point on which everybody is working . . . but we have still to work on that.” Story has more.<br/>