Want a climate-friendly trip? It will take some time and cost you more

When it comes to flying, going green can cost you more. Implementation of the strategy will take some time.

Sustainability has been a hot topic This week at the Paris Air Show, the world’s largest event for the aerospace industry, which is facing mounting pressure to reduce the climate-changing greenhouse gases that planes emit.

Even huge orders are on show It got a spin on cutting emissions: Airlines and manufacturers said the new planes would be more fuel efficient than the ones they replace.

But most of these planes will burn conventional jet fuel, which is based on kerosene. Startups are frantically working on electric powered aircraftbut they won’t catch on as fast as electric cars.

“It’s a lot easier to put a heavy battery in a vehicle if you don’t have to lift it off the ground,” said Gernot Wagner, a climate economist at New York University.

This means that sustainable jet fuel has become the industry’s best hope for achieving its promise of net zero emissions By 2050. Aviation produces 2% to 3% of carbon emissions worldwide, but its share is expected to increase as travel increases and other industries become greener.

Sustainable fuels, however, only represent 0.1% of all jet fuel. Made from sources such as used cooking oil and plant waste, SAF can be blended with conventional jet fuel but costs much more.

Suppliers will “be able to kind of set the price,” Molly Wilkinson, vice president of American Airlines, said at the airshow. “And we fear that at this point, that price will eventually come down to the passenger in some form of fare.”

With such limited supply, critics say the airlines are making overly ambitious promises and inflating how quickly they can ramp up SAF use. Even the industry has skeptics: nearly a third of aviation sustainability officials in a GE Aerospace survey Doubt the industry will reach its net zero target by 2050.

A lawsuit is being filed against Delta Air Lines It has been sued in US federal court by critics who say the airline falsely positions itself as the world’s first carbon-neutral airline, and that Delta’s claim is based on carbon offsets that are largely spurious. The Atlanta-based airline says the charges have “no legal basis.”

Across the Atlantic, a consumer group known by its French acronym, BEUC, filed a complaint this week with the European Union’s executive arm, accusing 17 airlines of greenwashing..

The group says airlines mislead consumers and violate rules on unfair business practices by encouraging customers to pay extra to help fund SAF development and offset future carbon emissions. Created by flying.

In one case, the group’s researchers found that Air France charged up to €138 ($150) for the green option.

“Sustainable aviation fuels, indeed, are the greatest technological potential to decarbonise the aviation sector, but the main problem … is that they are not available,” said Dimitri Veregny, BEUC’s chief policy officer.

Virginie added: “We know that before the end of the next decade – at least – it will not be available in huge quantities” and will not be the main source of aviation fuel.

Producers say SAF reduces greenhouse gas emissions by up to 80%, compared to regular jet fuel, during its life cycle.

Airlines have been talking about becoming greener for years. They’re shocked by the rise of “shame in flight,” a movement that encourages people to find less polluting transportation — or reduce travel altogether.

The issue gained prominence this year when EU negotiators agreed to new rules requiring airlines to use more sustainable fuel starting in 2025 and rising sharply in subsequent years.

The United States pays incentives rather than mandates.

A law signed by President Joe Biden last year would provide tax breaks for developing cleaner fuels for jets, but one of the credits will expire in just two years. That was too short to entice sustainable fuel producers, said Wilkinson, the American Airlines chief executive, and that the credit should be extended for 10 years or longer.

The International Air Transport Association, a trade group for airlines, estimates that SAF could contribute 65% of the emissions reductions needed for the industry to meet its net 2050 target.

But very few flights are operated by SAF due to limited supply and infrastructure.

Just before the opening of the Paris Air ShowPresident Emmanuel Macron announced that France would contribute €200 million ($218 million) to a €1 billion ($1.1 billion) factory to establish the Sudanese Armed Forces.

Several airlines have touted investments in SAF producers such as World Energy, which has a plant in Paramount, California, and Neste in Finland.

United Airlines plans to double its use of SAF this year, to 10 million gallons — but it burned 3.6 billion gallons of fuel last year.

Some see sustainable fuels as a bridge to cleaner technologies, including large electric or hydrogen-powered aircraft. But packing enough power to power a large electric aircraft would require an impressive leap in battery technology.

Hydrogen has to be cooled and stored somewhere — it can’t be carried in the wings of today’s planes, like jet fuel.

Hydrogen seems like a good idea. The problem is that the more you look at the details, the more you realize it’s an engineering challenge but also an economic challenge,” said Richard Aboulafia of AeroDynamic Consulting, an aerospace consultancy, at the Paris Air Show. “It falls into the realm of possibility,[but]not for the next few decades.”

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Koenig reported from Dallas. AP journalists Jade Le Daley and Tristan Werkmeister in Le Bourget, France, and Kelvin Chan in Toronto contributed.