Finance
Global airlines could miss sustainable fuel targets, IATA's Walsh says
Published by Global Banking and Finance Review
Posted on December 10, 2024
2 min readLast updated: January 27, 2026
Global Banking and Finance Review
Company
Published by Global Banking and Finance Review
Posted on December 10, 2024
2 min readLast updated: January 27, 2026
IATA's Willie Walsh warns of slow progress on sustainable aviation fuel targets, with SAF making up only 1% of jet fuel usage. Europe lags behind the U.S. in incentives.
By Joanna Plucinska and Emma Farge
GENEVA (Reuters) - The aviation industry isn't moving fast enough to reach its targets for producing and using sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), the head of airline trade body IATA Willie Walsh said on Tuesday, as it aims for net zero emissions by 2050.
"We're not making as much progress as we'd hoped for and we're certainly not making as much progress as we need," Walsh said at an IATA media day in Geneva.
As it stands, sustainable aviation fuel makes up only around 1% of the world's jet fuel usage, with experts saying the production rate of the green fuel needs to grow quickly for the sector to achieve its emissions goals.
Walsh pointed to a lack of biorefineries under construction which could produce the green jet fuel, many of which require extensive capital expenditure to get built.
He said Europe was lagging behind the United States when it came to crafting incentives that could help boost that expenditure.
The 2022 U.S. Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) contains hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies for clean energy and is billed as outgoing President Joe Biden's signature law to combat climate change.
Walsh said it was unclear what the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump would do regarding the IRA and how it would impact ongoing SAF production.
"There was quite a lot of progress in the first Trump administration in this area as well. So I don't think this is a black and white issue," he told reporters.
(Reporting by Emma Farge and Joanna Plucinska; Editing by Susan Fenton)
The main topic is the aviation industry's progress towards sustainable aviation fuel targets as discussed by IATA's Willie Walsh.
Sustainable aviation fuel is crucial for reducing aviation emissions and achieving net zero emissions by 2050.
SAF production faces challenges such as a lack of biorefineries and insufficient incentives, especially in Europe.
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