International Civil Aviation and the Environment
The vision of the International Civil Aviation Organization is to achieve the sustainable growth of the global civil aviation system. One of the strategic objectives listed by the Organization to achieve this vision is the environmental protection, seeking thus to minimize the adverse effects of the activities of civil aviation on the environment.
The development of environmental protection activities in the framework of the ICAO is in charge of the Committee on Aviation Environmental Protection – CAEP. The CAEP is a technical Committee that assists the ICAO Council in formulating new policies and Standards and Recommended Practices (SARPs) in the fields of aircraft noise and emissions.
Brazil is one of the 22 members of CAEP, which also includes 17 observers (States, international organizations and industry organizations).
The CAEP analyses and proposals take into account the technical feasibility, the environmental benefits, the economic reasonableness, the interdependence of measures. CAEP considers also developments in other fields and national and international programs.
The CAEP carries out its activities by using a structure of working groups. There are working groups dedicated to the technical feasibility of environmental measures, including the interdependence that exists between aviation noise (Working Group 1-WG1), airports and operations (Working Group 2-WG2) and emissions (Working Group 3-WG3).
The CAEP also has working groups to examine the effects of environmental measures on the system of civil aviation as a whole, indicating the environmental benefits (Modeling and Databases Group-MDG) with its economic impacts (Forecasting and Economic Analysis Support Group-FESG).
In addition, CAEP has the following groups:
- Aviation Carbon Calculator Support Group – ACCS: group to develop and maintain the CO2 Calculator.
- Impact and Science Group-ISG: a group that keeps updated the CAEP and the Secretariat about scientific discoveries in topics of civil aviation and the environment.
- Global Market Based Measure Technical Task Force: a group that develops recommendations for monitoring, reporting and verification systems for greenhouse gas emissions from international civil aviation.
- Alternative Fuels Task Force: a group that evaluates the contribution of alternative fuels in the reduction of emissions of the international civil aviation.