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.

FMI: www.apec.org, www.transport.nsw.gov.au, www.ipcc.ch