7 April 2010: Roberto Kobeh González, President of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), addressed the first High Level Conference on Safety and Environment, held in the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador.
González noted that the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference “did not produce the outcome expected,” adding that the “tremendous progress of the past two years especially in relation to aviation and the environment” went unnoticed. He emphasized that the same data-driven risk management techniques used to increase safety could be used to improve environmental protection. He recalled the commitments made by States accounting for 93% of all commercial air traffic at a high-level meeting on the environment held at ICAO in October 2009, including to: achieve an annual 2% improvement in aviation fuel efficiency; develop a global carbon dioxide standard for aircraft by 2013; and elaborate measures to facilitate financial and technological transfers to aid in greening the industry.
He closed by noting that ICAO’s Committee on Aviation and Environmental Protection (CAEP) has already begun work to implement these goals and has recently strengthened its recommendations for tighter national emissions regulations. [The Speech]