EASA welcomes ICAO’s adoption of new CO2 emission standards for aircraft

On 6 March 2017, the ICAO Council has adopted a new aircraft CO2 emissions standard which will reduce the impact of aviation greenhouse gas emissions on the global climate. This means that air transport is the first industry sector globally to adopt a CO2 emissions design certification standard. EASA led the technical work on the development of this CO2 standard for the past six years.

Contained in a new Volume III to Annex 16 of the Chicago Convention on Environmental Protection, the Standard will apply to new aircraft type designs from 2020, and to aircraft type designs already in-production as of 2023. Those in-production aircraft which by 2028 do not meet the standard will no longer be able to be produced unless their designs are sufficiently modified.

EASA is in the middle of the process to implement the Annex 16 amendments agreed at ICAO's Committee on Aviation Environmental Protection (CAEP/10) into European legislation. The EASA Notice of Proposed Amendment (NPA) is currently out for comment and the EASA Opinion is due to be delivered to the European Commission this summer.