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The head of British Airways announced today that the aviation industry would cut its emissions in half by the year 2050. Anchor Marco Werman speaks with MIT aeronautics professor John Hansman about what the airline industry can do to combat climate change.

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MARCO WERMAN: Meanwhile, the airline industry is promising to make a big reduction in its carbon emissions during the coming decades.  The chief executive of British Airways told the UN climate summit today that airlines have agreed to cut emissions in half by the year 2050. Critics say airlines have failed to tackle the problem of climate change.  But the airline companies say more efficient planes and new fuels will help.  John Hansman is a professor of aeronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  He says the airlines stand to gain by cutting emissions.

JOHN HANSMAN: It’s in the industry’s interest to reduce their carbon emissions, because most of what you do to reduce carbon emissions is to improve your field performance. The industry recognizes it’s gonna have increased pressure.  So I think they’re trying to get out ahead of it and do what they can to reduce their footprint.

WERMAN: Do you think they’re trying to show themselves to be environmentally conscious?  At the same time they also have to address this bottom line.  And the bottom line is 25 percent of their operating cost is fuel.

HANSMAN: Exactly.  Anything you can do to reduce your fuel use to make your airplanes, your operations more efficient will reduce your carbon footprint.  So it’s win-win for them from that respect.  They use a lot of fuel, there’s increasing demand for air transportation around the world.  Particularly the developing world. So, it’s gonna be a real challenge to be able to educe the overall carbon footprint while still serving the demand for air transportation.

WERMAN: And from your perspective, are the airlines committing to something that is reasonably possible by 2050?

HANSMAN: Well, the target of 1.5 percent reduction per year is consistent with what we’ve been doing for the past decade. It takes a long time to make major changes in equipment.  Because airplanes stay around for 30 years or so.  You may get some improvement by slowing down the airplanes a little bit.  If you back off from flying at Mach 8.2 to 7.6 or 7.4, you save a fair amount of fuel.

WERMAN: Let’s talk about those new jet fuels.  I’ve heard about these new biofuels.  Would we actually be running jet engines on old french fry oil?

HANSMAN: You can do it, the problem is, is there enough old french fry oil in the system?  There’s no question you can replace what we use currently as the jet fuel with different biofuels.  However, if we go into the future into carbon markets and cap and trade, there’ll be a lot of competition for that fuel. So there’s a real question as to whether aviation is the best user of that the fuel, or if there are other users that make more sense.

WERMAN: Now, environmentalists have been complaining that the airline industry is taking this initiative to head off much stricter regulations and higher taxes.  Remind us what critics of the industry have been calling for, and how does today’s announcement compare with what the environmentalists want?

HANSMAN: There have been a number of moves, the most significant have been in   Europe looking at carbon caps, and caps in trade emissions.  One of the challenges in long range commercial aviation is it’s very difficult to have a system that can be imposed around the world. So, while the Europeans could impose cap and trade restrictions on operating out of Europe, they don’t have the authority to tell people how to fly airplanes in Asia.  So there’s risk that people will start flying around Europe if the barriers are too high. So, it’s sort of a balancing act.  And it’s a real challenge to bring the standards up globally to address this global problem.

WERMAN: And finally, let’s talk about some really innovative technologies.  We speak of “slow food” as an antidote to fast food, over processed food, and a kind of red line lifestyle.  Do you think we could be seeing a return to dirigibles?  Or, you mentioned slowing the speed down.  Or, just slower forms of travel?

HANSMAN: There is actually some merit in looking at either hybrid lift or dirigible type aircraft for certain types of air freight.  But they don’t really make sense for passenger traffic.  The one place where we have seen it being effective is really for getting around surface traffic. Sort of commuting into New York City on a plane from Long Island.

WERMAN: Fascinating stuff.  John Hansman, professor of aeronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  Thanks for coming by.

HANSMAN: Sure.

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