Nearly 200 countries pledged to cut carbon emissions from commercial aviation on Friday, marking the global community’s most ambitious pledge to regulate international air travel’s contributions to climate change.
The International Civil Aviation Organization, a United Nations agency known by the abbreviation ICAO that represents 193 member states, announced the new goal at the conclusion of its triennial summit in Montreal, Canada. The result of almost a decade of negotiations, the non-binding target that the agency called a “long-term aspirational goal” asks countries to reach net-zero emissions from cross-border air travel by 2050.
The pledge fills a major hole left by the 2015 climate summit that resulted in the Paris Agreement, where signatory countries pledged to reduce emissions within their own borders but stopped short of tackling emissions created by cross-border travel. In remarks at the ICAO assembly last week, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg called the deal “a compromise but also a strong commitment.”
Some climate experts were less enthusiastic.
“This is not aviation’s Paris Agreement moment,” said... Read more
