Carbon offset programs have become ubiquitous. You’ve probably seen them as check-box options when booking flights: Click here to upgrade to a premium seat. Click here to cancel your greenhouse gas emissions. It’s an appealing proposition — the promise that, for a trivial amount of money, you can go about your business with no climate guilt. But if it sounds too good to be true, that’s because, at least for now, it is. The New York Times asked readers this spring to submit their questions about climate change, and several asked about carbon offsets. How do they work? Do they work at all, or, as one reader put it, “is it just guilt money?” The idea of carbon offsets, sometimes called carbon credits or climate credits, is simple. We know human activity releases tens of billions of tons of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases every year. We also know it is possible to remove or sequester carbon from the atmosphere by, for example, planting trees. Offsets seek to compensate for emissions in one place — for example, from passenger airplanes — by funding emission reductions or carbon removal somewhere else, like forests. Some experts see them as an essential tool to limit environmental damage, at least in the short to medium term, until the world can make a full transition to renewable energy. Governments including California, the European Union and Australia are relying on them to meet their national goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Story has more.<br/>
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Canadian airports are calling on the federal government to further ease COVID-19-related screening requirements as they continue to deal with disruptive passenger backlogs. Interim President of the Canadian Airports Council Monette Pasher said that airports were able to accommodate the restrictions in a timely way when passenger volumes were way down because of the pandemic, but they have struggled as passenger volumes return to normal. “In terms of international travel, really our airports can't easily facilitate these public health requirements as we've gotten back to regular travel,” she said. “We could do it when we were moving 10 per cent of (normal passenger volume) and up to 50% of passengers. But from the first week of May, we've got back to 70% of pre-COVID levels and it's very difficult to facilitate normal travel with these restrictions in place.” Pasher acknowledged that the biggest issue causing the backlogs is a worker shortage and said that the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority — the Crown corporation responsible for security screenings at Canadian airports – has been working hard to streamline the recruitment and training process. But she said the federal government could do more to help the situation by removing random tests and public health questions for arriving passengers. “Our biggest issue really, at Pearson, is in regards to international arrivals and the need to remove testing from our airports and some of these public health requirements,” she said.<br/>
The government of Panama and energy companies, including SGP BioEnergy, plan to develop a major, advanced biorefinery to increase supply of lower-carbon aviation fuel, the companies said Wednesday. The move comes as the airline industry seeks to achieve a goal of zero net carbon emissions by 2050 and as governments worldwide are pressing companies to increase clean energy investment. The biorefinery in Panama will produce 180,000 barrels per day of biofuels, including sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and renewable marine diesel, when it is complete at the end of 2026. The project joins a flurry of other announcements from companies that have pledged in the last few years to produce SAF. The airline industry is considered harder to decarbonize than other types of transportation, so a massive ramp-up in SAF output will be needed for aviation to reach net zero. Production will have to rise from an estimated 8b liters in 2025 to nearly 450b liters in 2050, according to an analysis from the IATA. SAF produces lower emissions than traditional petroleum-based jet fuel by utilizing feedstocks including soybean oil, used cooking oil and tallow, but it is more expensive to produce.<br/>
Greece said on Wednesday it would end the mandatory wearing of face masks in airplanes and indoor public venues from June 1, as it lifts restrictions imposed to curb the spread of COVID-19 ahead of the summer, its peak tourism season. The EASA and European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said this month that face masks will not have to be worn in airports and on flights in Europe from May 16. But rules for wearing masks vary after the mandatory requirement was lifted, with airlines told to encourage passengers to use masks on flights to or from destinations where wearing a mask on public transport is still required. “Mandatory mask-wearing remains in hospitals, nursing homes and urban transport like buses, metro and tram,” Greece’s Health Minister Thanos Plevris said in a televised message. He added that an experts committee will announce its decision for ferry passengers next week. <br/>
Before the Covid-19 pandemic hit Hong Kong, at least 120-130 private jets would be parked outside a dedicated terminal at the city’s bustling international airport. But when Justin Yeung, strategy head at Hong Kong-based business jet operator Metrojet, went down there to do a count in February, he found just 30. The pandemic has forced even the wealthiest in Asia’s biggest financial hub into some difficult decisions. “We’re talking [owners who are in] the Forbes top 50 and counting downwards,” says Yeung. “They might have homes in many parts of the world and there are aircraft based here which are flying around the EU and US.” But, while some wealthy Hongkongers and mainland Chinese chose to fly their jets abroad, others decided to sell them. Border closures amid the world’s strictest lockdowns have weighed heavily on the region’s private and business travel market. China’s pursuit of a Covid-zero strategy — including a quarantine requirement of several weeks — has upended travel plans for billionaires. Many have opted to base themselves, and their aircraft, in countries with laxer travel rules. Those affected by the restrictions, though, have found a ready market for their aircraft in the US. The administration of former president Donald Trump introduced a tax break allowing individuals to write off the cost of a jet against their federal taxes from September 2017. Mainland China’s business jet fleet shrank slightly from 346 in 2020 to 340 last year, while Hong Kong’s fleet dropped more sharply, from 120 to 101, according to data from travel data provider Asia Sky Media.<br/>
The sustainability of the Changi air hub, alongside its competitiveness and efficiency, will anchor its value proposition moving forward, Transport Minister S. Iswaran said Wednesday. He said work is under way on several fronts to reduce carbon emissions in the sector, amid the development of a sustainability blueprint by an international advisory panel. The blueprint, which was announced in February, is expected to be ready next year. It will set sustainability goals for 2030 and 2050, with details on how to get there. Iswaran, who was responding to a question during a press conference after the two-day Changi Aviation Summit, said Singapore can and will work to reduce emissions from the sector. This includes work in areas such as electrification, tapping renewable energy sources and energy efficiency. An area of focus for airline operations will be in terms of sustainable aviation fuel, he added. Such fuel is produced from renewable raw materials, such as used cooking oil or animal fat from food industry waste. Iswaran said Singapore is looking into how it can contribute to the use of sustainable aviation fuel as part of the fuel mix for planes. "This is something that requires a systemic solution because it's not just about an airline design, because you need resources, the feedstock, the manufacturing (capabilities) and the ability to have that delivered to the fuel system in the airport," he said. "So it is an effort that requires a systemic level of response. That is an example of the kind of things we are looking at."<br/>
Electric aviation and air travel company Surf Air Mobility (SAM) said on Wednesday it would merge with a blank-check firm and commuter airlines Southern Airways Corporation, in a deal valuing the combined entity at $1.42b. Los Angeles-based Surf Air has been involved in a series of acquisitions and partnerships, including Textron Inc, over the past year as it plans to use electrified aircraft across its network. The White House under the Biden administration is targeting 20% lower aviation emissions by 2030 as airlines face pressure from environmental groups to lower their carbon footprint. “We are at a moment when the increasing consumer demand for faster, affordable and cleaner regional travel will be met with SAM’s electrification ecosystem to accelerate the industry’s adoption of green flying,” said Sudhin Shahani, CE of Surf Air. The deal, expected to close in the second half of the year, will fetch up to $467 million in gross cash proceeds, including committed capital from strategic and financial investors such as iHeartMedia, Partners For Growth and an equity line from Global Emerging Markets, Surf Air said. The combined company, comprising Surf Air, special purpose acquisition company Tuscan Holdings Corp II and Southern Airways, expects to generate about $100m revenue in 2022 revenue from all its business units.<br/>