All Aircraft Could Fly on Sustainable Fuel by 2030, Says World Economic Forum Report

• Enough sustainable feedstock supplies, such as municipal waste, agricultural residues and cooking oil waste, exist to reach production levels of 500 million tons of Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) annually, meeting the projected jet fuel demand of all aviation by 2030.
• Planned production capacity investments will, however, only yield 4 million tons annually by 2030 – approximately 1% of global jet fuel demand for 2030 – requiring the urgent stimulation of a viable SAF ecosystem to reach 2030 decarbonization targets.
• Hybrid-electric and hydrogen-powered aircraft could help the industry reach the next efficiency target, but development and deployment at scale could take 10 to 20 years.
• The Cleans Skies for Tomorrow (CST) initiative is working on a pilot project for the creation of a SAF sector in India and plans to replicate this process in other markets.

The Sustainable Aviation Fuels as a Pathway to Net-Zero Aviation Report shows that a transition to carbon-neutral flying is possible, with SAF the most promising decarbonization option in the near term.

There are enough sustainable, renewable feedstocks to fuel all aviation using SAF by 2030. Scaling up SAF production to meet the net-zero ambition, however, depends on several new technology routes and significant multistakeholder collaboration. The main challenge will be developing appropriate commercial, financing, incentives and regulatory mechanisms.

SAF as a feasible route to net-zero aviation

In 2019, aviation accounted for 3% of human-made carbon emissions. Hybrid-electric and hydrogen-powered aircraft could help the industry reach the next efficiency target, but development and deployment at scale could take 10 to 20 years and the technology will initially be limited to smaller, shorter-range aircraft.

Furthermore, in 2019, fewer than 200,000 metric tons of SAF were produced globally, a tiny fraction of the roughly 300 million tons of jet fuel used by commercial airlines.

More positively, SAF has already fuelled more than one-quarter of a million commercial flights and is compatible with existing aircraft and fuelling infrastructure.

Even following the challenge to aviation during the COVID-19 pandemic, members of the CST coalition are continuing their commitment to drive energy transition in aviation towards the goal of net-zero aviation.

An economic opportunity for developing markets

Aviation delivers significant benefits globally, not least to developing markets, from where a sizeable portion of global aviation demand is expected to come. The current crisis may also present an opportunity for countries with low renewable power prices and ready access to feedstock. If these countries act now, they can benefit from energy transition in aviation and become global SAF production hubs.

“The structural changes happening in the industry are an opportunity to rebuild and transition towards a low-carbon future and meet the sustainability demands of its consumers,” said Christoph Wolff, Head of Mobility Industries at the World Economic Forum.

To this end, the CST initiative is working on a pilot project to create a SAF sector in India and plans to replicate this process in other markets that have the necessary conditions to foster a valuable SAF industry.

Building scale is key to improving cost

This report, written in collaboration with McKinsey & Company, shows that despite feedstock availability and even if all currently announced SAF projects are completed, capacity will only increase to approximately 4 million tons annually, which equates to approximately 1% of global jet fuel demand in 2030.

Currently, SAF is more than double the cost of conventional fuel. As further innovations and efficiencies of scale in production are achieved, prices will drop.

“We see the classic Catch-22 problem as in other energy transition discussions. Insufficient scale drives per unit costs high and high costs keep demand low. Some structural solutions could break this impasse – B2B contracts, prioritized aviation and airport fee structures etc. that will give fuel producers the required support to invest in production capacity,” said Daniel Riefer, Associate Partner, McKinsey & Company.

Investments can accelerate promising new technologies

Fuels produced from used cooking oil and other lipids will contribute most to developing capacity in the short term. New technologies take time to mature and develop, but investment decisions, including building larger demonstration plants, are needed now.

Power-to-liquid fuels can contribute the most to SAF capacity, but will only prove effective after 2030 under current development plans. Fuels made from CO2 and green electricity will require financial support for their technology to mature and will need access to renewable electricity.

There is no silver bullet for net-zero aviation. No single feedstock will be practical in every geography or yield enough SAF to meet all demand. Even as costs fall, SAF will have higher production costs than fossil fuels, though a rising carbon price may enable parity in the 2030s.

While the report demonstrates that enough feedstocks are available globally to make SAF economically viable and scalable, several factors are required. These include supportive regulatory frameworks, measures to stimulate demand from corporate and private customers, and innovative ways to finance the transition. The CST coalition is debating how to meet these challenges and help aviation earn its right to keep growing.

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Carbon offsets ... may be beneficial and airlines are on board with market-based measures such as CORSIA, which may advance global reforestation. Reforestation offsetting schemes can cost as little as $5 per metric ton of CO2  captured, but increasing demand could lead to significant cost increases over time and there remain significant risks and questions over their long-term effectiveness. Other offsetting projects include resource recovery, such as capturing methane from landfills. Geological sequestration may be the most effective option currently available, but it is expensive and is still a nascent technology. 

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HEFA (Hydroprocessed Esters and Fatty Acid synthetic paraffinic kerosenes - SAFs) will likely remain the most efficient pathway through 2030. It is the most cost competitive since the proven technology requires relatively little capital investment – the main barrier is the cost of feedstock, a commodity with no big cost-reduction potential. Production costs depend mostly on the cost of feedstock, which today ranges from about $600 to $950 per metric ton. Including the cost of used cooking oil, solar-based hydrogen and operating and capital expenses, which should all decline in the years ahead, total production costs per metric ton of SAF could decrease from around $1,400 today to around $1,100 by 2050 in constant dollars, compared to a steady cost of fossil jet fuel of about $620. Due to falling production costs and availability of sustainable feedstock, by 2030, HEFA produced anywhere in the world could cover 100% of European jet fuel demand at less than 1,500 USD/t.

The 2020 report of The Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: responding to converging crises

Executive summary

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The 2020 report presents 43 indicators across five sections: climate change impacts, exposures, and vulnerabilities; adaptation, planning, and resilience for health; mitigation actions and health co-benefits; economics and finance; and public and political engagement. This report represents the findings and consensus of the 35 leading academic institutions and UN agencies that make up The Lancet Countdown, and draws on the expertise of climate scientists, geographers, engineers, experts in energy, food, and transport, economists, social, and political scientists, data scientists, public health professionals, and doctors.

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5 years ago, countries committed to limit global warming to “well below 2°C” as part of the landmark Paris Agreement. 5 years on, global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions continue to rise steadily, with no convincing or sustained abatement, resulting in a rise in the global average temperature of 1·2°C. Indeed, the five hottest years on record have occurred since 2015.

The changing climate has already produced considerable shifts in the underlying social and environmental determinants of health at the global level. Indicators in all domains of section 1 (climate change impacts, exposures, and vulnerabilities) are worsening. Concerning, and often accelerating, trends were seen for each of the human symptoms of climate change monitored, with the 2020 indicators presenting the most worrying outlook reported since The Lancet Countdown was first established.

https://www.cdc.gov/climateandhealth/effects/default.htm

These effects are often unequal, disproportionately impacting populations who have contributed the least to the problem. This fact reveals a deeper question of justice, whereby climate change interacts with existing social and economic inequalities and exacerbates longstanding trends within and between countries. An examination of the causes of climate change revealed similar issues, and many carbon-intensive practices and policies lead to poor air quality, poor food quality, and poor housing quality, which disproportionately harm the health of disadvantaged populations.

Vulnerable populations were exposed to an additional 475 million heatwave events globally in 2019, which was, in turn, reflected in excess morbidity and mortality (indicator 1.1.2). During the past 20 years, there has been a 53·7% increase in heat-related mortality in people older than 65 years, reaching a total of 296 000 deaths in 2018 (indicator 1.1.3). The high cost in terms of human lives and suffering is associated with effects on economic output, with 302 billion h of potential labour capacity lost in 2019 (indicator 1.1.4). India and Indonesia were among the worst affected countries, seeing losses of potential labour capacity equivalent to 4–6% of their annual gross domestic product (indicator 4.1.3). In Europe in 2018, the monetised cost of heat-related mortality was equivalent to 1·2% of regional gross national income, or the average income of 11 million European citizens (indicator 4.1.2).

Turning to extremes of weather, advancements in climate science allow for greater accuracy and certainty in attribution; studies from 2015 to 2020 have shown the fingerprints of climate change in 76 floods, droughts, storms, and temperature anomalies (indicator 1.2.3). Furthermore, there was an increase in the number of days people were exposed to a very high or extremely high risk of wildfire between 2001–04 and 2016–19 in 114 countries (indicator 1.2.1). Correspondingly, 67% of global cities surveyed expected climate change to seriously compromise their public health assets and infrastructure (indicator 2.1.3).

The changing climate has downstream effects, impacting broader environmental systems, which in turn harm human health. Global food security is threatened by rising temperatures and increases in the frequency of extreme events; global yield potential for major crops declined by 1·8–5·6% between 1981 and 2019 (indicator 1.4.1). The climate suitability for infectious disease transmission has been growing rapidly since the 1950s, with a 15·0% increase for dengue caused by Aedes albopictus in 2018, and regional increases for malaria and Vibrio bacteria (indicator 1.3.1). Projecting forward, based on current populations, between 145 million people and 565 million people face potential inundation from rising sea levels (indicator 1.5).

Despite these clear and escalating signs, the global response to climate change has been muted and national efforts continue to fall short of the commitments made in the Paris Agreement. The carbon intensity of the global energy system has remained almost flat for 30 years, with global coal use increasing by 74% during this time (indicators 3.1.1 and 3.1.2). The reduction in global coal use that had been observed since 2013 has now reversed for the past 2 consecutive years: coal use rose by 1·7% from 2016 to 2018. The health burden is substantial—more than 1 million deaths occur every year as a result of air pollution from coal-fired power, and some 390 000 of these deaths were a result of particulate pollution in 2018 (indicator 3.3). The response in the food and agricultural sector has been similarly concerning. Emissions from livestock grew by 16% from 2000 to 2017, with 93% of emissions coming from ruminant animals (indicator 3.5.1). Likewise, increasingly unhealthy diets are becoming more common worldwide, with excess red meat consumption contributing to some 990 000 deaths in 2017 (indicator 3.5.2). 5 years on from when countries reached an agreement in Paris, a concerning number of indicators are showing an early, but sustained, reversal of previously positive trends identified in past reports (indicators 1.3.2, 3.1.2, and 4.2.3).

Despite little economy-wide improvement, relative gains have been made in several key sectors: from 2010 to 2017, the average annual growth rate in renewable energy capacity was 21%, and low-carbon electricity was responsible for 28% of capacity in China in 2017 (indicator 3.1.3). However, the indicators presented in the 2020 report of The Lancet Countdown suggest that some of the most considerable progress was seen in the growing momentum of the health profession's engagement with climate change globally. Doctors, nurses, and the broader profession have a central role in health system adaptation and mitigation, in understanding and maximising the health benefits of any intervention, and in communicating the need for an accelerated response.

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Individual health professionals and their associations are also responding well, with health institutions committing to divest more than $42 billion worth of assets from fossil fuels (indicator 4.2.4)....

It is clear that human and environmental systems are inextricably linked, and that any response to climate change must harness, rather than damage, these connections.10 Indeed, a response commensurate to the size of the challenge, which prioritises strengthening health-care systems, invests in local communities, and ensures clean air, safe drinking water, and nourishing food, will provide the foundations for future generations to not only survive, but to thrive.11 Evidence suggests that being more ambitious than current climate policies by limiting warming to 1·5°C by 2100 would generate a net global benefit of US$264–610 trillion.12 The economic case of expanding ambition is further strengthened when the benefits of a healthier workforce and reduced health-care costs are considered.

Rebuilding Cities to Generate 117 Million Jobs and $3 Trillion in Business Opportunity with Nature-Positive Strategy

COVID-19 recovery packages that include infrastructure development will influence the relationship between cities, humans and nature for the next 30 to 50 years. With the built environment home to half the world’s population and making up 40% of global GDP, cities are an engine of global growth and crucial to the economic recovery.

Research shows that nature-positive solutions can help cities rebuild in a healthier and more resilient way while creating opportunities for social and economic development. The World Economic Forum’s new Future of Nature and Business Report found that following a nature-positive pathway in the urban environment can create $3 trillion in business opportunity and 117 million jobs.

“Business as usual is no longer sustainable,” said Akanksha Khatri, Head of the Nature Action Agenda at the World Economic Forum. “Biodiversity loss and the broader challenges arising from rapid urban population growth, financing gaps and climate change are signalling that how we build back can be better. The good news is, there are many examples of nature-based solutions that can benefit people and planet.”

Cities are responsible for 75% of global GHG emissions and are a leading cause of land, water and air pollution, which affect human health. Many cities are also poorly planned, lowering national GDP by as much as 5% due to negative impacts such as time loss, wasted fuel and air pollution. However, practical solutions exist that can make living spaces better for economic, human and planetary health.

The study, in collaboration with AlphaBeta, highlighted examples of projects deploying nature-positive solutions and the business opportunities they create.

Cape Town: Cape Town was just 90 days away from turning off its water taps. Natural infrastructure solutions (i.e. restoring the city’s watersheds) were found to generate annual water gains of 50 billion litres a year, equivalent to 18% of the city’s supply needs at 10% of the cost of alternative supply options, including desalination, groundwater exploration and water reuse. 

 

Singapore: Singapore’s water leakage rate of 5% is significantly lower than that of many other major cities thanks to sensors installed in potable water supply lines. Globally, reducing municipal water leakage could save $115 billion by 2030. Returns on investment in water efficiency can be above 20%.

 

Suzhou: Suzhou Industrial Park’s green development in China has seen its GDP increase 260-fold, partially through green development. The park accommodates 25,000 companies, of which 92 are Fortune 500 companies, and is home to 800,000 people. The park has 122 green-development policies, including stipulations on optimizing and intensifying land use, improvement of water and ecological protection, and the construction of green buildings. As a result, 94% of industrial water is reused, 100% of new construction is green, energy is dominantly renewable and green spaces cover 45% of the city.

 

San Francisco: San Francisco requires new buildings to have green roofs. The “green” roof market is expected to be worth $9 billion in 2020 and could grow at around 12% annually through 2030, creating an incremental annual opportunity of $15 billion.

 

Philippines: The loss of coastal habitats, particularly biodiverse and carbon-rich mangrove forests, has significantly increased the risk from floods and hurricanes for 300 million people living within coastal flood zones. A pilot project in the Philippines, one of the countries most vulnerable to climate change, is monetizing the value of mangroves through the creation of the Restoration Insurance Service Company (RISCO). RISCO selects sites where mangroves provide high flood reduction benefits and models that value. Insurance companies will pay an annual fee for these services, while organizations seeking to meet voluntary or regulatory climate mitigation targets will pay for blue carbon credits. 

Overall, restoring and protecting mangrove forests in human settlements can reduce annual flood damage to global coastal assets by over $82 billion while significantly contributing to fighting climate change.

The report identifies five complementary transitions to create nature-positive built environments and outlines the business opportunities and potential cost savings for programmes targeting urban utilities for water, electricity and waste, land planning and management, sustainable transport infrastructure and the design of buildings.

Office space the size of Switzerland

Global examples call out areas to be improved. For example, an estimated 40 billion square metres of floor space is not used at full occupancy during office hours – an area roughly equivalent to the size of Switzerland. The COVID-19 upheaval has prompted a surge in flexible and remote working models in many countries – greater application of such models could help reduce the need for private office space in the future.

Governments’ role to raise and steer finance

The report calls for both government officials and businesses to play their part in raising and steering finance for sustainable urban infrastructure. “Regulations in areas including urban master planning, zoning and mandatory building codes will be critical to unlocking the potential of net-zero, nature-positive cities and infrastructure,” said Khatri. “We are at a critical juncture for the future of humanity. Now is the time to treat the ecological emergency as just that. A net-zero, nature-positive path is the only option for our economic and planetary survival and how we choose to use COVID-19 recovery packages might be one of our last chances to get this right.”

The Report is available free of charge at:

https://www.weforum.org/reports/new-nature-economy-report-ii-the-future-of-nature-and-business

The Future of Nature and Business sets out how 15 transitions across the three systems can form the blueprint of action for nature-positive transitions which could generate up to US$10.1 trillion in annual business value and create 395 million jobs by 2030.

COVID-19 has brought the Great Acceleration to a screeching halt. Hundreds of thousands of people have died and entire sectors of the economy have stopped operating. All because a novel zoonotic disease, possibly triggered by human disturbance of nature, became a pandemic. As of June 2020, governments and international organizations have invested close to $9 trillion to try to prevent the most immediate human and economic impacts. But despite these efforts, the global economy is expected to contract by 3% in 2020, affecting the jobs and livelihoods of millions of people. page 4

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A pragmatic framework for the industry to lead the transition towards a nature-positive economy.... can unlock an estimated $10 trillion of business opportunities by transforming the three economic systems that are responsible for almost 80% of nature loss.

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The first report of the World Economic Forum’s New Nature Economy Report (NNER) series, Nature Risk Rising, highlighted that $44 trillion of economic value generation – over half the world’s total GDP – is potentially at risk as a result of the dependence of business on nature and its services.

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Key Findings at a Glance

There is no future for business as usual – we are reaching irreversible tipping points for nature and climate, and over half of the global GDP, $44 trillion, is potentially threatened by nature loss.

Fighting climate change is essential but not enough to address the nature crisis – a fundamental transformation is needed across three socio-economic systems: food, land and ocean use; infrastructure and the built environment; and energy and extractives.

80% of threatened and near-threatened species are endangered by the three systems, which are responsible for the most significant business-related pressures to biodiversity; these are also the systems with the largest opportunity to lead in co-creating nature-positive pathways.

15 systemic transitions with annual business opportunities worth $10 trillion that could create 395 million jobs by 2030 have been identified that together can pave the way towards a people- and nature-positive development that will be resilient to future shocks.

Why did renewables become so cheap so fast? And what can we do to use this global opportunity for green growth?

Summary

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Fossil fuels dominate the global power supply because until very recently electricity from fossil fuels was far cheaper than electricity from renewables. This has dramatically changed within the last decade. In most places in the world power from new renewables is now cheaper than power from new fossil fuels.

The fundamental driver of this change is that renewable energy technologies follow learning curves, which means that with each doubling of the cumulative installed capacity their price declines by the same fraction. The price of electricity from fossil fuel sources however does not follow learning curves so that we should expect that the price difference between expensive fossil fuels and cheap renewables will become even larger in the future.

This is an argument for large investments into scaling up renewable technologies now. Increasing installed capacity has the extremely important positive consequence that it drives down the price and thereby makes renewable energy sources more attractive, earlier.... Falling energy prices also mean that the real income of people rises. Investments to scale up energy production with cheap electric power from renewable sources are therefore not only an opportunity to reduce emissions, but also to achieve more economic growth – particularly for the poorest places in the world.

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Today fossil fuels – coal, oil, and gas – account for 79% of the world’s energy production and as the chart below shows they have very large negative side effects. The bars to the left show the number of deaths and the bars on the right compare the greenhouse gas emissions. My colleague Hannah Ritchie explains the data in this chart in detail in her post ‘What are the safest sources of energy?’.

This makes two things very clear. As the burning of fossil fuels accounts for 87% of the world’s CO2 emissions, a world run on fossil fuels is not sustainable, they endanger the lives and livelihoods of future generations and the biosphere around us. And the very same energy sources lead to the deaths of many people right now – the air pollution from burning fossil fuels kills 3.6 million people in countries around the world every year; this is 6-times the annual death toll of all murders, war deaths, and terrorist attacks combined.1

It is important to keep in mind that electric energy is only one of several forms of energy that humanity relies on....2

What the chart makes clear is that the alternatives to fossil fuels – renewable energy sources and nuclear power – are orders of magnitude safer and cleaner than fossil fuels.

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Fossil fuels dominate the world’s energy supply because in the past they were cheaper than all other sources of energy. If we want the world to be powered by safer and cleaner alternatives, we have to make sure that those alternatives are cheaper than fossil fuels.

The price of electricity from the long-standing sources: fossil fuels and nuclear power

The world’s electricity supply is dominated by fossil fuels. Coal is by far the biggest source, supplying 37% of electricity; gas is second and supplies 24%. Burning these fossil fuels for electricity and heat is the largest single source of global greenhouse gases, causing 30% of global emissions.3

The chart here shows how the electricity prices from the long-standing sources of power – fossil fuels and nuclear – have changed over the last decade.

To make comparisons on a consistent basis, energy prices are expressed in ‘levelized costs of energy’ (LCOE). You can think of LCOE from the perspective of someone who is considering building a power plant. If you are in that situation then the LCOE is the answer to the following question: What would be the minimum price that my customers would need to pay so that the power plant would break even over its lifetime?

Site Conditions, Maintenance Costs, and Plant Performance of 10 Extensive Green Roofs in the Research Triangle Area of Central North Carolina

Summary

Compared with traditional roofing, green roofs (GRs) have quantifiable environmental and economic benefits, yet limited research exists on GR plant survival, maintenance practices, and costs related to plant performance. The objective of this study was to assess plant cover, site conditions, and maintenance practices on 10 extensive GRs in the Research Triangle Area of North Carolina. Green roof maintenance professionals were surveyed to assess plant performance, maintenance practices, and maintenance costs. Vegetation cover on each site was characterized.

Relationships among plant performance and environmental and physical site characteristics, and maintenance practices were evaluated. Survey respondents ranked weed control as the most problematic maintenance task, followed by irrigation, pruning, and debris removal. No single design or maintenance factor was highly correlated with increased plant cover. Green roof age, substrate organic matter, and modular planting methods were not correlated with greater plant cover.

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Results showed a trend that irrigation increased plant cover. Plants persisting on GRs included several species of stonecrop (Sedum sp.), but flame flower (Talium calycinum) and ice plant (Delosperma basuticum) were also present in high populations on at least one roof each. Green roof maintenance costs ranged from $0.13/ft² to $3.45/ft² per year, and were greater on sites with more weeds and frequent hand watering.

https://www.nps.gov/tps/sustainability/new-technology/green-roofs/chicago-case-study.htm

https://www.nps.gov/tps/sustainability/new-technology/green-roofs/define.htm

https://www.themayor.eu/it/hamburg-with-a-long-list-of-ambitious-green-roof-projects