Enough of the endless talk fests – just get on with cutting carbon emissions. That was the hard-hitting advice for global policy makers from Air New Zealand CEO Rob Fyfe delivered at the recent “Greener Skies” conference in Hong Kong.
In his speech he noted that from our small country alone, hundreds of long-haul hour sectors will have been flown this year by officials taking part in UN climate-related talks.
“Frankly I would rather forgo the revenue we get from this bureaucratic circus. I am very happy to see price on carbon – it should be applied equitably across geographies; uniformly across all industry sectors; and it should incentivise improvement and investment in new green technologies rather than simply penalise all activity.
“I look forward to the day when we all stop protecting our respective butts in the endless policy debates and start focusing, globally, on concerted action.”
Fyfe said it was no-brainer for Air New Zealand to work on emissions reduction since fuel is its largest cost, but the need to protect New Zealand’s environmental status and consider future generations are also drivers for the company to pursue greener practices. These include upgrading to more fuel-efficient fleet, operational changes such as reducing carriage of water and exploration of biofuels.
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