U.S. Airlines Under Pressure To Fly Greener

Carriers Already Trying to Save Fuel as Europe Proposes Plan

Airlines and airplane makers have largely slipped under the radar in the debate over global warming.

But a dispute over a European emissions-trading proposal has caught many carriers and their trade groups by surprise, spurring them to launch a public relations blitz highlighting their green bona fides, even if most of their work has been aimed at boosting their bottom lines.

Long a punching bag for consumer complaints and neighborhood protests over noise and poor air quality, the industry wants to avoid becoming a target on another front.

"People are looking across the Atlantic and seeing what is happening in Europe," said Nancy N. Young, the new vice president of environmental affairs at the Air Transport Association, U.S. carriers' main trade group. "We know that it's coming here. . . . Aviation has lost the public square in this debate. We need to do a better job of letting people know that our environmental interests are directly aligned with our business interests."

Industry officials are quick to point out that commercial aviation contributes a very small percentage of the greenhouse gas and particle emissions that scientists blame for global warming. But they also acknowledge that aviation's impact could surge if the industry continues its worldwide growth spurt.

Boeing expects the number of commercial jetliners to nearly double, to 36,420, in the next 20 years. The Federal Aviation Administration expects 1.2 billion passengers a year to travel on U.S. carriers by 2020, up from 741 million last year.

By 2050, the industry is expected to contribute anywhere from 6 to 10 percent of the gases and particles tied to global warming, up from about 3 percent today, said Michael J. Prather, a professor at the University of California at Irvine and lead author of a 1999 report on aviation's role in global warming for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

"It's a growth industry that lives off" jet fuel, Prather said.

Aviation's expansion has led to political problems for the industry in Europe, where there is increasing pressure to cut back on air travel, reduce airport expansion and increase taxes on tickets. Some religious leaders have suggested that flying on vacation is immoral.

In response, the European Union proposed rules that would require airlines serving domestic routes to enter into an emissions-trading scheme by 2011. Carriers flying to and from Europe, including U.S. airlines, would have to enter the system by the following year. The plan is based on one already in operation for other European industries that buy and sell credits to emit certain amounts of carbon dioxide.

The United States and other nations plan to vigorously fight the proposal at an international meeting of aviation authorities in Montreal in September. They say it would drive up costs for airlines and violate the principle of air-service deals brokered between governments. Moreover, they say, Europe doesn't have the right to force carriers to buy credits for carbon dioxide emitted in U.S. or international airspace, and they would rather set up a global framework for emissions trading than confront a hodgepodge of different regional systems.

"The emissions issue is real," said Marion C. Blakey, the FAA's administrator. "But we want to move forward on a global basis. To this point, the Europeans have shown no flexibility."