Finally a clear and responsible outcome from the aviation industry. Air travel is one of the biggest, and growing, environmental issues on the planet. Low-cost airlines offer cheap tickets to people who who couldn't afford to fly before, both in developing and developed countries. Did you visit Thailand recently? Most likely you met fellow tourists from Scandinavia and Germany just like before, but also an increasing amount of people from east Europe, former Soviet countries, China and other countries fast improving their economical status.

IATA (International Air Transport Association) announced new targets at the World Business Summit on Climate Change conference in Copenhagen. They are:

1) improve fuel efficiency 25% from 2005 level by 2020
2) 10% of fuel to be renewable by 2017
3) define a date when for when the industry is completely carbon neutral, i.e. an increasing demand in traffic will not increase CO2.

The third target is ambitious, as aviation plans to be the first international industry to grow in a carbon neutral way.

These targets are part of preparations for the UN Climate Change conference to be held in Copenhagen in December. While agreeing on these very good targets, the industry also present demands. The preparational business meeting wants public authorities to set clear, ambitious and measurable targets for reducing emissions to a safe level. This is a fair demand. If global industries can agree on common targets and standards, then governments should be able to do the same. Otherwise businesses will just move to countries who couldn't care less about regulations. Unfortunately global consumer movement cannot be left responsible for organising boycotts against irresponsible companies. For that the man is just too selfish and a lazy species.