NextGen Aviation Ignores Climate Change

The Bush administration and FAA are currently focusing on a multi-agency effort to enable a major expansion of American air transportation. This effort – the Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) – operates under the assumption that the U.S. aviation traffic will triple in the next 20 years. NextGen progress reports make no mention of climate change, global warming, or the carbon dioxide emissions of aircraft.
Currently, aviation accounts for 2-3 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions. This percentage, already significant, is likely to increase substantially as flight numbers rise and emission curbing policies are instituted in other sectors of the economy.
Continuing to ignore these issues could jeopardize the future of American aviation while allowing air travel to have an increasingly harmful effect on the environment. Future global warming emissions reduction policy could place limits on aviation. Federal NextGen planning should be focusing now on systematically reducing greenhouse gas emissions in order to position U.S aviation to meet such requirements.

Politically Incorrect.