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October 11, 2009 09:34 AM

IATA Urges Governments Help Achieve 6 Pct Biofuel Usage By 2020

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 11 (Bernama) -- Biofuel developers should get governments to provide fiscal incentives among other things in efforts to help the aviation industry accelerate its endeavour to reduce carbon remissions.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) director-general, Giovanni Bisignani Saturday night said they expect the industry to have six percent of biofuel in the system by 2020.

"Those pioneers of biofuels have not received any fiscal incentives from governments. These governments have the responsibility to help develop biofuel as this could also help close the gap between IATA's target and the states' target of fuel efficiency," he told reporters via a teleconference from Montreal.

At the just-concluded International Civil Aviation organisation (ICAO) High Level Meeting on International Aviation and Climate Change in the Canadian city, (HLM-ENV), the states declared to work together to achieve anually two percent fuel efficiency up to 2020, as opposed to IATA's improvement target of 1.5 per cent.

"When we are just testing (the feasibility of biofuel), everyone wants to wait for the results. But the moment it gets certified, everyone wants to be be on board," he said.

In the same tele-conference, IATA's director of environment, Paul Steele added that the challenge now was to ramp-up enough quantity in order to achieve the six percent target, especially with the lack of support from both the governments and also oil firms.

"We hope to advance that number as we get closer to 2020,," he said, adding that the use of biofuel does not require adjustments to aircraft or engine.

-- BERNAMA

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