Latest news with #ICAO
Sharjah 24
a day ago
- Science
- Sharjah 24
First COSPAS-SARSAT joint committee meeting held in UAE
The 39th COSPAS-SARSAT Joint Committee Meeting has begun in Abu Dhabi, hosted for the first time by the UAE. Organised by the National Search and Rescue Centre (NSRC), the event runs from May 27 to June 5, 2025, gathering over 200 international experts. The meeting aims to enhance global cooperation in satellite-based search and rescue efforts, with participation from over 45 countries and major international organisations such as ICAO, IMO, and ITU. Through the COSPAS-SARSAT programme, the UAE is playing a proactive role in building strategic partnerships and sharing expertise to support global humanitarian and life-saving missions. Bertoia said the committee would discuss integrating the MEOSAR satellite system, which supports navigation systems like GPS, Galileo, and BeiDou, into COSPAS-SARSAT operations. She added that they plan to introduce two-way communication with distress beacons, allowing users to exchange signals with rescue coordination centres. Bertoia praised the UAE's support, stating that the country's facilities are enabling an efficient and productive meeting focused on advancing life-saving technologies. She noted the UAE's proposal to incorporate AI in search and rescue efforts and expressed the organisation's interest in learning more and potentially integrating these technologies into COSPAS-SARSAT's operations. The meeting is expected to yield significant results that will enhance international coordination and support technological capabilities in emergency response.
Reuters
2 days ago
- Business
- Reuters
Will CORSIA flight offsetting scheme pay for green projects - or greenwash?
May 16 - Airlines using offsets to market flights as sustainable have frequently been accused of greenwash, opens new tab by campaigners, with the risks demonstrated last year by the legal precedent-setting Dutch Court ruling against KLM. Now, however, the industry is gearing up to buy hundreds of millions of credits through a global scheme agreed under the United Nation's International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). The Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA) is expected to unlock unprecedented demand for carbon offsets. But will the scheme have enough integrity baked in to assuage greenwash concerns? CORSIA aims to offset growth in the sector's greenhouse gas emissions by mandating airlines to purchase credits for each tonne they emit over a baseline of 85% of 2019 emissions. As with most offset schemes, airlines are only meant to buy carbon credits as a last resort, once they have put in place other emissions reduction strategies. These include making aircraft and engines more efficient and lighter, more efficient operations such as take-off and landing, and electric engines for short-haul flights. CORSIA also has a list of eligible feedstocks for sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs), which airlines can use to reduce their need to purchase offsets, though these are in short supply. CORSIA is being implemented in phases ahead of becoming mandatory for all international flights from 2027. During a pilot phase, from 2021-2023, and the first phase, 2024-2026, offsetting is required only for flights between states that volunteer to participate, but as of this year, 129 states are included in the scheme. Integrity under scrutiny IATA insists that CORSIA and the carbon credits sold under it are high integrity, backed by several safeguards and independent checks. In December, the body approved four new CORSIA-compliant carbon standards: Gold Standard, Verra, Climate Action Reserve and Global Carbon Council, adding to the two existing standards, American Carbon Registry (ACR) and Architecture for REDD+ Transactions (ART), which manages The REDD+ Environmental Excellence Standard (TREES). All projects must meet eligibility criteria that emissions reductions are real, additional and permanent. IATA has, however, removed some categories of credits that have attracted the most controversy from eligibility for CORSIA. These include afforestation and reforestation, and project-level REDD+ schemes, which pay for projects that protect forests that are under threat. Allowed are jurisdictional-level REDD+, which are administered at a national level, the type of scheme certified by ART TREES. In addition to ICAO's process, governments of host countries must agree 'a corresponding adjustment' to prevent double counting, so that credits supporting projects under CORSIA are not also used to meet national obligations under the Paris Agreement on climate change. So far, only Guyana has agreed a corresponding adjustment for 7.15 million credits issued by TREES. One million of these were purchased for a fixed price of $21.70 by 11 airlines late last year, when IATA held the first large-scale auction. But the forestry schemes the South American nation intends to finance through CORSIA have previously been criticised by scientists, who said they would overstate the amount of emissions they will prevent, given that Guyana is a country with high forest cover, but low amounts of deforestation (HFLD). While some Indigenous groups has supported the Guyanese government, others have complained to ART about insufficient consultation, and questioned whether they are receiving adequate compensation for their role in protecting Guyana's forests. ART, however, defends its crediting approach for HFLD countries like Guyana, citing gold mining exploration as one of numerous threats to Guyana's intact forests. "Forests cannot be protected indefinitely without ongoing support and incentives." It also said all 242 Indigenous communities in Guyana have received funds from an earlier sale of 33.47 million TREES credits, some of which had been bought by corporate buyers. While Guyana's credits are currently the only game in town under CORSIA, 15 countries – mostly in Africa – are in the process of issuing Letters of Adjustment, according to IETA. 'These are like a promissory note that you will issue a corresponding adjustment within two years,' explains Will Gifford, policy manager, aviation and natural climate solutions lead at IETA. 'A lot of countries are figuring out how many credits they can authorise to go out of the Paris Agreement bucket and into the CORSIA bucket. Guyana is the only one we have now, but we expect a lot more,' he says. Until some of these come to fruition, just 7.6 million credits meet the eligibility criteria for CORSIA, according to carbon market analysts Abatable. It estimates demand from airlines at 135-182 million units during the first phase, leaving demand two or three times larger than supply. This gap widens during the second phase, when it forecasts demand as reaching 825 million to 1.6 billion units, nine to 10 times supply. In spite of the removal of some project types from CORSIA, critics have questioned the emissions-reduction potential of some categories that are still eligible, such as projects that provide communities with efficient cookstoves to replace burning of wood cut from local forests. In March, the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM) tightened up the eligibility criteria for cookstove projects that meet its Core Carbon Principles on the voluntary carbon market, removing those at risk of overestimating the amount of carbon they reduced due to insufficiently robust methodology. Derik Broekhoff, a senior scientist at the Stockholm Environment Institute, says such credits are, however, still eligible under CORSIA. 'The approach under CORSIA has been to assess the major credit issuing programmes and approve them, with some restrictions on particular categories of projects. But one of the challenges with these markets in general is that, even within individual categories, you find good and bad projects, and there's no granular-level screening to weed out the bad ones,' he says. Bastien Bonnet-Cantalloube, expert on decarbonisation of aviation and shipping at Carbon Market Watch, said: 'It's fairly positive that the eligibility rules have been made more stringent for phase one (of CORSIA). But we've already seen problems with the very first batch, so we don't expect these other registries and the new batch of credits that will be made available to airlines to be great.' Gifford of IETA believes that international scrutiny of offsets under CORSIA will bring accountability to the system. Integrity will also be supported by the fact that countries hosting the projects funded by the scheme must also approve them, he believes. 'We can draw a distinction here between CORSIA and a voluntary scheme for passengers to offset emissions from their flight. Even though CORSIA is a global scheme, there is local control over how it is used. It's not simply anyone buying whatever they want from wherever they want,' he says. The LEAF Coalition is a public-private coalition that has signed agreements with countries including Ecuador, Costa Rica and Ghana to undertake jurisdicational scale REDD+ reforestation projects. Its credits have been certified by both ART TREES and the ICVCM. Some will be sold to airlines through CORSIA, once the countries have signed corresponding adjustments. Eron Bloomgarden is CEO of Emergent, which acts as a non-profit intermediary for the coalition. He says reversing deforestation is reliant on sufficient finance for projects that make protecting forests worth more than destroying them. 'The constraint is really unlocking large sources of demand – this is where CORSIA comes in. Our goal is to achieve net zero deforestation by 2030. To do that, we need to catalyse $10 billion-$20 billion by 2030, and CORSIA could provide maybe a quarter of that,' he says. Bloomgarden says the scheme should be viewed as a transition tool, until efficiency technologies and alternatives to long-haul travel become viable. 'Airline offsets are the best possible solution in the intervening time – they're as good as, if not better, than SAFs (sustainable aviation fuels),' he says. Judit Legrady, senior managing consultant for Article 6 and CORSIA at consultancy South Pole, points out that growth in demand for international air travel is estimated at 4-5% a year. 'If you look at projected annual improvements in efficiencies of aircraft fuel or operations, and those resulting from using SAF, there will still be a CO2 emissions-reduction gap,' she says Alongside addressing residual emissions through offsets, CORSIA will incentivise airlines to reduce emissions, invest in new technologies and adopt SAF. Juan Carlos Arredondo Brun, director of knowledge, policy and advocacy at Abatable, points to the additional environmental and social benefits of projects funded by CORSIA, such as reductions in air pollution and support for livelihoods of communities where projects take place. It will also provide a continuous source of funding for up to 30 years' operation, which will be an improvement on the ad hoc funding such projects typically currently receive through voluntary markets. 'CORSIA is the first truly global carbon market, so it should be allowed to become more mature and efficient. We must not lose sight of the benefits of projects funded by CORSIA that go beyond the quantification of carbon emissions reductions,' he says. For Bloomgarden, CORSIA marks a shift in the global approach to greenhouse gas emissions. 'Given where we are in the climate emergency, every tonne of emissions should be paid for,' Bloomgarden adds. 'The era of using the atmosphere as a free resource to store our climate pollution should be over.' Terry Slavin contributed to this article. This feature is part of The Ethical Corporation's in-depth briefing on Sustainable Tourism. To download the PDF, click here
Zawya
2 days ago
- Business
- Zawya
Nigeria: NCAT to tackle infrastructure gap, adopts ICAO decarbonisation policy
The Nigerian College of Aviation Technology (NCAT) has announced steps to bridge the infrastructure gap in the country's aviation sector. The Rector of NCAT, Dr Danjuma Adamu Ismaila, assured that the institution remains committed to meeting the increasing demand for aviation training programmes. He stated that despite certain challenges, including insufficient accommodation, the college is working towards positioning itself as a premier centre for manpower development in Nigeria. To this end, NCAT is currently constructing a 150-room hostel and finalising plans to acquire a Boeing 727 flight simulation facility. According to Ismaila, this will enable the college to offer recurrent training for pilots within the country, thereby reducing the need for overseas travel. The college is also adopting the International Civil Aviation Organization's (ICAO) decarbonisation policy, which seeks to minimise the aviation industry's carbon emissions. As part of this initiative, NCAT is implementing an aggressive carbon emission reduction programme, which includes transitioning to solar and other alternative sources of power and energy. By embracing environmentally sustainable practices, the college aims to generate carbon credits. The Rector noted that NCAT has recorded significant achievements, including the training of numerous air traffic controllers from neighbouring countries in the English language—one of ICAO's requirements. He expressed confidence that the college will continue to advance its decarbonisation efforts and expand its curriculum to reflect evolving trends and technologies in the global air travel industry. Chairman of the League of Airports and Aviation Correspondents (LAAC), Comrade Idris Suleiman, commended NCAT for its contributions to the development of aviation in Nigeria. He encouraged the college to continue developing programmes that address the rapidly evolving trends in the sector and to provide training aligned with the needs of airlines, aviation agencies, and other stakeholders in the industry. Suleiman also praised the institution for its improved infrastructure and expressed optimism about NCAT's continued leadership in aviation training in Nigeria. He urged participants in the training course to engage with curiosity, commitment, and an open mind, and to make the most of the valuable learning opportunity. Copyright © 2022 Nigerian Tribune Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (
Travel Daily News
2 days ago
- Business
- Travel Daily News
ACI World and Cranfield University launch groundbreaking course
ACI World partners with Cranfield University to launch a pioneering net zero-focused airport management course, empowering aviation leaders for sustainable, innovation-driven transitions. MONTREAL – Airports Council International (ACI) World has announced a new partnership with Cranfield University, one of the world's premier institutions for aviation research and education, to deliver a pioneering new course: Airport Management in a Net Zero World. Offered under the globally acclaimed ACI – International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Airport Management Professional Accreditation Program (AMPAP), this intensive one-week course will be hosted on the Cranfield campus in the United Kingdom, providing a powerful platform for aviation professionals to deepen their leadership capabilities in the contedext of climate action, innovation, and resilience. 'The challenges facing the airport industry today demand informed, forward-thinking leadership. This course provides a critical forum for senior professionals to engage deeply with emerging trends and their implications, building on the rigorous foundation of AMPAP. Partnering with Cranfield University reflects our shared commitment to cultivating the intellectual leadership needed to guide aviation through its most transformative era,' said ACI World Director General Justin Erbacci. 'We are delighted to build on the growing partnership between Cranfiezld University and ACI and have crafted a new, transformative learning experience. This course offers a stimulating, immersive environment and invaluable collaboration with like-minded professionals. We welcome delegates to our unique campus to gain new perspectives to shape their thinking and strategy on a multi-dimensional development journey designed to inspire and elevate,' said Professor Anna Smallwood, Head of Centre for Air Transport Management at Cranfield University. Shaping future airport leaders for the net zero era As global aviation advances toward net zero carbon emissions, airports face growing pressure to navigate complex, evolving challenges. This new AMPAP course addresses that need, equipping current and future airport leaders with strategic insight and practical tools to lead through sustainable transitions, digital transformation, geopolitical shifts, and rising passenger expectations. A first-of-its-kind in the AMPAP portfolio, the course blends policy insight, operational strategy, and hands-on exploration of emerging aviation technologies – an essential investment in climate-conscious, innovation-driven airport leadership. Cranfield: A hub of aviation excellence Cranfield University has earned global recognition as a center of excellence in aviation, aerospace, and environmental innovation. The institution has played a vital role in AMPAP over the past two years, contributing leading-edge expertise to the program's evolving curriculum. Two exclusive experiential components of the course include: A guided tour of the Digital Aviation Research and Technology Centre (DARTeC) A visit to the Cranfield Hydrogen Innovation Centre
Saba Yemen
4 days ago
- Saba Yemen
2nd G of Pilgrims departs Sana'a Intel Airport
Sana'a – Saba: The second group of 298 pilgrims departed Sana'a International Airport on Sunday aboard two Yemenia flights. Yemenia airlines at Sana'a Airport provided all standard international airport ground services, adhering to ICAO regulations. The departing pilgrims expressed their appreciation for the efforts of the relevant authorities in easing their travel procedures and providing necessary services. The first group of 297 pilgrims had departed from Sana'a International Airport on Saturday on two Yemenia flights. Facebook Whatsapp Telegram Email Print more of (Local)
