Thread by @HiskeArts

1/ The Science Based Target Initiative (SBTi) proposed an interim pathway for aviation companies to set 1.5 targets.

Shockingly, this pathway has little to do with science, and paves the way for aviation growth.

🧵 (bear with me, it’s a long one…)
sciencebasedtargets.org/news/the-sbtis…

2/ The pathway is based on the “breakthrough” scenario of @TheICCT, a techno-optimistic scenario where everything falls in its place, as a result of “early, aggressive, and sustained government intervention that triggers widespread investments in zero-carbon aircraft and fuels”.

3/ But be aware: even the techno-optimistic breakthrough scenario is not aligned with 1.5. According to the ICCT: “To get to 1.5°C, [offsets] and/or significant direct curbs to traffic growth would be needed.

4/ In the “breakthrough scenario”, the carbon budget for aviation would already be blown up in 2030, and exceeded by > 2x by 2050 (!). Quite a remarkable basis for a scenario that is supposedly aligned with 1.5.

5/ According to SBTi, aviation growth deserves a greater share of emissions because IEA says aviation is hard to abate. So the 1.75 scenario suddenly becomes a 1.5 scenario. This is not science that is speaking, but a highly political choice that governments have yet to make.

6/ If the aviation sector is allowed a bigger chunk of the carbon budget to grow more, then there should also be sectors that have to give up more of their part. Wonder who is up for that.

Heating, steel, cement, automotive, agriculture: everyone okay with that?

7/ Naturally, it is true that there aren’t going to be clean planes, but to get emissions down, there is actually a very effective climate strategy: keeping planes on the ground. Just look at how emissions dropped during the pandemic. Aviation is actually easy to abate.

8/ According to IPCC, reducing flights (in particular long haul) has one of the highest potential to reduce emissions (10-40%)

Nevertheless, SBTi decides that aviation is hard to abate, and takes the political decision to allow aviation 3% growth in air traffic.

9/ Conveniently, SBTi excludes in its pathway non-CO2-effects, while those are reliably estimated to be three times larger than the CO2-impact of aviation.

Apparently, SBTi is still in the peek-a-boo-phase: if we close our eyes, it might not be there.

10/ SBTi decides that steep emission reduction can be delayed until 2032, even though this is at odds with what the managing director of SBTi says is needed to reach the 1.5-scenario: we need to halve global emissions in the next 8 years.
sciencebasedtargets.org/news/sbti-rais…

11/ To allow for aviation growth now, SBTi counts on unprecedented technological innovation and a massive scale up of biofuels, e-fuels and hydrogen later on. This techno-optimistic scenario is completely out of touch with reality.

12/ Let’s take a look at what the industry has called SAF (alternative fuels).

According to @TheICCT, a 3900x increase in 2030 is needed compared to 2020 levels. That’s a long way to go, in particular if we look at how targets have been met previously.

13/ So how will this massive scale-up be realised? According to ICCT, government interventions such as a global fuel tax will be necessary to realise the "breakthrough".

Nevertheless, if an airline wants to be validated by SBTi, it is allowed to lobby against those measures.

14/ Also, SBTi makes no distinction between companies that operate in mature markets, and companies that operate in emerging economies. So even airlines and airports that had their share are allowed to expand. Aviation is already highly inequitable, his pathway makes it worse.

15/ So SBTi proposed a highly unfeasible, techno-optimistic and inequitable scenario, that allows for continued aviation growth and delays steep emissions reduction until 2032, which is at odds with the need to decrease emissions in this critical decade.

How is this possible?

16/ SBTi’s business model depends on the willingness of companies to get validated. Companies have to pay to be validated. That’s why they need companies to find their pathway feasible and sign up to it.

17/ This is not without consequences:

1⃣Airports and airlines will use this pathway to fight caps and restrictive measures
2⃣Airlines will use this scenario to defend their greenwashing
3⃣Politicians, investors and banks will use this to allow for and invest in growth

18/ So the SBTi offers a flawed political scenario that helps the aviation industry to fight against the most important climate policy measure, while blowing up the carbon budget. This is not science, this is the facilitation of the aviation lobby.

19/ And a foolish strategy – if you ask me. SBTi gives airlines the chance to say in 2032: “thanks for giving us credibility in the critical decade to grow. But those steep emission reductions that we need to do now are not realistic. Talk to you never!“

20/ The 1.5-aviation scenario is not yet final, so this is the chance to let @sciencetargets know they should either become actually science based or rename themselves the Greenwashing Based Target Initiative. With this pathway, they are only worsening the climate crisis. /end