Category: Environment and Sustainability

E-PORT AN initiative: Fraport and Lufthansa Group receive “Eco-company Partnership of the Year” award U.S. aviation magazine Air Transport World. The magazine acknowledges pioneering role and commitment to promoting greater use of electric vehicles on the ground.

At the Frankfurt Airport global hub, airport operator Fraport and the Lufthansa Group are working hand-in-hand on the initiative E-PORT AN, aimed at introducing more electric vehicles into the aircraft handling process, thus reducing the environmental impact of airport operations. The renowned U.S. aviation industry magazine Air Transport World (ATW) has acknowledged this commitment with the “Eco-company Partnership of the Year” award, which was Continue reading “Award for reducing environmental impact of airport operations”

The Emirates Group has released its fifth annual environmental report for 2014-15. Audited by PricewaterhouseCoopers, the report presents environmental performance data across a range of activities including airline operations, dnata’s cargo and ground handling businesses and a wide range of commercial activities on the ground – from engineering to catering.

HH Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, Chairman and Chief Executive, Emirates Airline and Group: “As the scale of our operations expands, we are ever more conscious of our responsibility towards the environment and communities we serve.”  Continue reading “Emirates: ,For a greener Tomorrow´”

On 12 December in Paris the inter- national community agreed a histo- ric deal. The world climate agree ment will ensure that global warming caused by human activity is limited. All 196 countries have approved the agreement. It was decided that global warming will be kept well below two degrees Celsius compared to levels at the end of the 19th century. (One degree has already been reached.) Efforts should be undertaken to limit the increase of ground- evel temperature to 1.5 degrees.

The CO2 emissions will soon reach their peak, according to the treaty. No great progress has been achieved with this according to Raimund Schwarze from Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ). Developing countries in particular may need longer. In the second half of the century a balance should be achieved between greenhouse gas emissions and their absorption by the oceans and forests, or through technical means such as CO2 dumping. Formulations such as decarbonization, zero emissions or emission neutrality were hindered by the oil-producing nations, India and a few others.

What does all of this mean for the aviation industry ?
” Even though international aviation and shipping is explicitly excluded from the text of the climate treaty, we believe that it will be very significant for Continue reading “The document from Paris to ‘save the world’”

The UN Climate Change Conference, the annual State Parties Conference (Conference of the Parties, COP) was created in 1996 during the UN Climate Change Framework Convention. Up to now the results have only been minor, but the hope and expectations for Paris are high. The Conference 2015 which started November 30th was supposed to end December 11th continues…

So far, the aim of the Climate Change Conference was to develop a succession agreement to the Kyoto Protocol which expired in 2012 and which up until now has been the only binding instrument of international law for the policy of climate conservation. A global post-Kyoto settlement in which many no longer believed should now be decided on at the 21st UN Climate Change Conference (COP 21) in Paris. What had been achieved since 1992 in Rio?

A Chronology

1992: United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro
Following years of scientific and political discussions about the protection of the climate, the UN Conference on the Environment and Development, ”UNED”, took place in June 1992. At this historical “Rio Conference” the climate framework convention was Continue reading “The arduous process and the high hopes of Paris”