Disclaimer: This text reflects only the opinion of its author and does not in any way commit the official word of the French Air and Space Academy.
By Alain Joselzon, Full Member.
Global warming/climate change is a huge challenge for humanity, a growing threat that leaves little time to be able to react effectively. Each sector is trying to contribute to solutions to stop or curb the phenomenon, either independently of the others or, increasingly, by coordinating its efforts with those of the other sectors, taking into account the common factors (energy in particular) and the multiple interactions involved. This is the basis of the European Green Deal.
In this context, in the aviation sector, vast, coherent and ambitious programmes are being built in Europe, designed as major “battle plans”, separately or jointly, by the private industrial sector and by public bodies, as illustrated by the “Clean Aviation” research programme and reports such as the “Strategic research and innovation agenda (SRIA)”. This report is a much more ambitious and focused version of the ACARE or Flightpath 2050 reports emanating from the previous work of the European Commission, which is supposed to respond to the scale and urgency of the climate challenge. It should be noted that it is very well written and researched, “convincing on paper”.