The burning issue: Is travel really set up for a carbon-free future?

A key plank of Jet Zero is the commitment by 2025 to have at least five UK SAF plants under construction and mandate “at least 10%” SAF in the UK aviation fuel mix by 2030.

When fully replacing kerosene, SAF averages 70% fewer greenhouse gas emissions. However, UK commercial aviation fuel usage was 12.4 million tonnes in 2019, and the government admits it will need five million tonnes of SAF by 2050 to meet its net zero target.

SAF is a major challenge; in December, United Airlines, which has pledged to be carbon neutral by 2050 without offsetting, promised to purchase 7.1 million gallons of SAF – almost twice all current global airline SAF commitments. United’s impressive commitment is, though, undermined by its need for four billion gallons of conventional jet fuel a year.

While supply of SAF remains restricted, cost will be higher; SAF varies from at least double the price of kerosene to five times more depending on the source and location – and passengers will foot the bill.

The US Environmental Protection Agency estimates just over 2.4 million gallons of SAF were produced there in 2019, compared to the 21.5 billion gallons of conventional kerosene used by US airlines, making SAF only 0.01% of its total jet fuel supply. 

Greenwashing?

The UK government said it aimed to publish a SAF mandate consultation this autumn to discuss how the new fuel will be introduced and monitored. It also announced up to £165 million from the Advanced Fuels Fund to support projects until March 2025. Of this, £22 million will be reserved for direct air capture projects, the most sustainable form of SAF because it combines captured CO2 with hydrogen to make liquid fuel.

Even with this, the supply of SAF will not be enough and with the lack of alternative power sources like electric aircraft, the industry will have to rely on offsetting for its carbon neutrality.

“It’s greenwashing – it’s not really scalable,” said Alethea Warrington, aviation campaigns manager at climate change charity Possible. “If SAF is from household waste, it contains a lot of plastic; it’s still removing fossil fuels from the ground and burning it.”

She described alternative fuels from carbon capture as “the least worst option”. “It’s very high cost and does produce non-CO2 emissions," Warrington continued. "I’ve seen estimates of only 30% to 60% reductions compared with kerosene, and there’s also the huge scale of infrastructure needed. It makes much more sense to reduce the number of flights.”

Possible believes airlines must be forced to adopt short-term emission reduction targets without relying on offsets or other measures that do not sufficiently reduce climate impacts. “The industry says you can fly carbon neutral, but that’s assuming we will be able to remove millions of tonnes of CO2 every year and there’s really not the scale of infrastructure to do that,” Warrington added.

The charity stresses the premise of Jet Zero is therefore fundamentally flawed because of its “burn now, pay later” approach. “We’re seeing polluting industries trying to argue they can keep on digging up fossil fuels and burning them if they put resources into carbon sinks. It’s not a balance, sinks must be in addition to getting off fossil fuels.”

Additionally, it has raised concerns about how the thorny issue of taxation is tackled. “It’s ridiculous individual motorists pay more tax than the entire aviation industry,” Warrington said. “We asked for a frequent flier levy because we’ve estimated aviation’s exemption from VAT and no tax on kerosene costs the exchequer £7 billion.”

‘Policy-light’

Groups like Possible are noticeably absent on the 30-strong Jet Zero Council, with The Aviation Environment Federation (AEF) the only "green" representative. “It’s largely a conversation between the industry and government,” said Tim Johnson, AEF director.

Johnson also disputes the government’s 10% 2030 SAF target. “It’s very difficult to see how you can supply that from the UK alone in that timeframe," he said. "After that, it’s really difficult to see how they will scale up to the 50/60/70% we need to keep our emissions in check.

"We think it’s a very policy-light document in terms of how to deliver,” Johnson added, warning Jet Zero also lacked incentives for things like SAF. “It’s fanciful to suggest there will be emissions reductions without stronger intervention and regulation.”

Johnson said he wanted to see five-yearly targets ahead of the 2050 deadline and criticised the focus on UK domestic aviation, which he said was only 4% of aviation emissions.

He added: “We always talk about market and regulatory drivers, but we don’t really discuss the role of consumers. They don’t have much ability to engage with the industry – there’s no CO2 labelling or government recognition. There needs to be a consumer-led debate; if airlines are lagging behind, the public needs to see that.”

The AEF disputes Goodwin’s “greenwashing” description, but Johnson added: “What is greenwashing is ministers saying this marks the start of guilt-free flying. It’s dangerous and undermines the intent of the strategy – people will hear ‘guilt-free’ and not read the detail. It’s not just misleading, it’s almost a backward step.”

While it is perhaps asking too much for any transport secretary to issue a “fly less” message, the AEF feels the message must change.

“We feel increasingly it comes back to the difficult question about how long we permit unconstrained demand – when do you start a debate about price signals? Ministers don’t want to use the words ‘demand reduction’ but it’s necessary,” said Johnson.