Europe’s forthcoming ReFuelEU initiative, which aims to bring about an uptake of sustainable advanced fuels (SAFs) in the aviation sector, has the potential to finally start decarbonising the emissions of a carbon intensive industry.
Though the sector is currently going through a major crisis, demand will bounce back, and so long as that demand is powered by fossil fuels in traditional jet engines, we will have a major problem.
However, like many climate policies there are good and bad ways in which this policy can be drafted and implemented. Europe’s experience with alternative fuels in its road transport sector shows what can go wrong: unsustainably high targets driving crop biofuels which competed with food and indirectly drove deforestation. Europe must avoid this mistake in drafting its ReFuelEU initiative.
This paper is partly based on analytical work by consultancy Cerulogy and shows what policy-makers need to do to put aviation fuels on a most sustainable footing post-Covid.
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