On 11 July 2012, at Saint Petersburg, in the Russian Federation, an important step towards establishing a worldwide CO2 Standard for aircraft was made. The International Civil Aviation Organization’s (ICAO’s) Committee on Aviation Environmental Protection (CAEP) unanimously agreed on a CO2 metric system that characterizes the CO2 emissions for aircraft types with varying technologies. ICAO is a United Nations specialist agency, and the announcement is covered in COM15/12.

The ICAO Council President is quoted as saying: “The new CO2 metric system agreed today by States, as well as intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, addresses emissions from a wide variety of aircraft on a fair and transparent basis….. It includes factors which account for fuselage geometry, maximum takeoff weight and fuel burn performance at three different cruise conditions and is a major move forward.”

The new aircraft CO2 metric system will now move onto the next stages in the development of an ICAO CO2 aircraft Standard, and includes the definition of certification procedures to support the agreed metric system and the Standard’s scope of applicability. The criteria for appropriate regulatory intervention will be analyzed, looking at technical feasibility, environmental benefit, cost effectiveness and the impacts of interdependencies.

The ICAO’s Environment Branch Chief, said “highlights that there is a great deal of motivation in every quarter of our sector to achieve real progress on aviation environmental performance.” CO2Land org applauds the courageous for tackling carbon risk in this way.