Climate change is an important environmental issue for the air transport industry. We are committed to addressing it, in an efficient and effective way.

In the short-term, British Airways is committed to increasing the fuel efficiency of our aircraft and buildings. We are targeting a 30% improvement in our aircraft fuel efficiency between 1990 and 2010 and a 2% per annum reduction in energy consumption in our buildings.

We support a long-term strategy to limit air transport’s climate change contribution based on robust science, sound economics and well-developed policy instruments. We are working with UK, European and worldwide industry partners to develop this strategy.

British Airways does not accept that the right way to limit emissions is to discourage flying – by punitive taxes or constraints on industry growth. This has not been effective in curbing road transport growth and, if applied to air transport, would lead to extremely negative social and economic effects for the European economy.

Instead we believe that a well-designed emissions trading scheme is a cost-effective and environmentally beneficial policy instrument. Whilst an international approach through the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) must be the ultimate objective, we recognise that some regions may need to move faster than others in developing measures to address climate change.

We believe that including air transport within emissions trading – initially within the EU but eventually within a broader international scheme – is the most environmentally effective and economically efficient mechanism for dealing with carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions from air transport.

To ensure that emissions trading can be introduced for European air transport without distorting international competition or imposing unreasonable cost burdens on airlines, a practical and pragmatic approach to the scheme design is needed.  In particular we highlight the following design elements:

Aircraft contribute to climate change through CO₂ emissions and other effects in the atmosphere. CO₂ emissions are significant and well understood, however, effects related to oxides of nitrogen (NO_x) and cirrus cloud may also be important.

Understanding of the atmospheric effects associated with NO_x, contrails and cirrus clouds is not sufficiently mature to define appropriate mitigation mechanisms at this stage. Importantly, premature action could have a perverse impact on other policy objectives, for example by increasing emissions of CO₂.

Recognising that scientific uncertainty is not a reason for inaction, British Airways supports the following commitments through the Sustainable Aviation initiative:

In support of atmospheric research, British Airways is involved in a major European research project IAGOS (Integration of routine Aircraft measurements into a Global Observing System) to measure gases and aircraft effects in the atmosphere.