Qatar Airways Chief ‘Skeptical’ About 2050 Due Date for Net-Zero Emissions

Q

Skift Take

Air travel’s ability to reach its net-zero emissions objective by 2050 is a complex and difficult task. It demands substantial advancements in technology, fuel supply, and industry-wide cooperation. In light of these formidable obstacles, the Qatar Airways Chief Executive’s outlook is both understandable and necessitated.

Peden Doma Bhutia

The head of Qatar Airways voiced apprehension on Tuesday over an air travel industry target of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050, mentioning inadequate supplies of Sustainable Air travel Fuel and alternative hydrogen styles in their infancy.

“I do not believe that we will be able to accomplish net-zero emissions by 2050. Everybody’s discussing it, however let us be realistic– there is inadequate production of sustainable aviation fuel,” Chief Executive Akbar Al Baker told the Qatar Economic Online forum, arranged by Bloomberg.

The caution by one of the industry’s most prominent leaders comes days before worldwide airline companies are due to talk about how to implement the climate pledge at a yearly conference of the International Air Transportation Association in Istanbul in June.

Because air travel emissions are viewed as difficult to ease off without radical innovation, the main focus has been on “drop-in” fuels that can be positioned in the existing generation of jet engines, like plant- or waste-based SAF and synthetic alternatives.

“Really the only considerable factor by way of change in technology is Sustainable Air travel Fuel. That’s the only thing that moves the needle in between now and (2050 ),” Boeing President Dave Calhoun told the exact same Doha event.

In a stand-off with the energy market over materials available for air travel, airlines are worried that a gap would obstruct efforts to reach the target. There is also little consensus on who must pay to increase production, while some ecological groups say the strategies are too modest.

Plane is promoting efforts to develop a little industrial aircraft powered by hydrogen by 2035.

Boeing’s Calhoun stated such technology would mature just in the second half of the century.

In 2021, countries at a United Nations body accepted a long-term aspirational objective for net-zero aviation emissions by 2050, providing political weight to a target embraced by IATA and other industry groups consisting of airports and planemakers in 2019.

(Reporting by Andrew Mills and Tim Hepher; modifying by Barbara Lewis)

This short article was composed by Tim Hepher and Andrew Mills from Reuters and was legally accredited through the Industry Dive Content Marketplace. Please direct all licensing concerns to [e-mail protected]

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