Australia Takes Lead In Effort
The 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic
Cooperative (APEC) forum agreed Friday to reduce airline pollution
using a variety of measures, including limiting the number of
planes circling airports waiting to land, reported MedIndia.
Australia got a jump on announcements, detailing on Thursday its
efforts to curb pollution, including traffic control changes to
enhance aviation fuel efficiency, consisting of more flexible and
direct flight paths, as well as continuous descents that eliminate
the need for slowing and accelerating when landing.
Through better planning, pilots will be told to delay their
arrivals while they are still at cruising altitude rather than
being placed in low-level holding circuits in which jet engines
burn five-times more fuel, reported MedIndia.
Transport officials from the Thursday's forum, representing a
third of the world's population, agreed to adopt the same measures
as Australia in an effort to slash millions of tons of carbon
emissions.
"The commitment from the APEC economies is a major step forward
in adopting a global approach to climate change,' said Australian
Transport Minister Mark Vaile, who chaired the meeting.
"The commitment from the APEC economies is a major step forward
in adopting a global approach to climate change," he added, "and
Australia will do all it can to help support practical and
realistic initiatives that meet the environmental challenges of the
future."
Vaile noted, "Australia
announced a range of measures to reduce aviation greenhouse
emissions, including improving fuel efficiency through more
flexible flight tracks, improving aircraft air traffic control
sequencing to reduce fuel burn/emissions, more efficient runway use
and continuous descent approaches which minimize speed changes.
These measures will reduce aviation greenhouse gas emissions by
hundreds of thousands of tons."
Reducing the number of planes in stacks of holding patterns over
Sydney alone would cut more than nine metric tons of carbon dioxide
emissions each day, he noted.
But, warned an Australian critic, "The very thing that brought
the world to our doorstep could be killing us. Aviation is the
world's most polluting form of travel."
Terry Leahy, the chief executive of the British supermarket
chain Tesco, said recently that he wanted to devise a system of
labeling that would enable shoppers to "compare a product's carbon
footprint just as easily as they can currently compare its price or
nutritional value."
Many feel that climate change pollution generated by aviation is
growing faster than that from any other sector, according to media
reports, especially with the plethora of discount airlines and
unending construction of airports in regional cities worldwide.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change also weighed in:
Complex chemical reactions occur when aviation fuel is burnt at
high altitudes. Consequently aircraft emissions become nearly three
times as damaging to the atmosphere as the carbon dioxide from
ground transport.