BRUSSELS — The EU’s effort to slash CO2 emissions from flying is running into serious trouble and Brussels needs to force airlines to use more sustainable aviation fuel and even slap tariffs on imports, the head of the bloc’s largest sustainable fuel producer told POLITICO.
The situation for sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs) is so dire that Finland’s Neste will complete an existing refinery in Rotterdam and then halt all of its other planned projects.
“We will have to hold on other investments, simply because … the amount of debt of the company has reached a level where we simply cannot continue,” Heikki Malinen, CEO of Neste, said in an interview with POLITICO. “The issue is simply the lack of demand.”
That creates the danger the EU won’t hit its target of cutting greenhouse gases from flying — a key part of its Green Deal project to make the bloc climate neutral by 2050. Aviation is responsible for about 2.5 percent of global CO2 emissions, and that is expected to rise as demand for flying grows.
