The Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) has called for the collaboration of stakeholders to work toward a drastic reduction of carbon emissions especially at the international wing of the Murtala Muhammad Airport, Lagos.
The managing director and chief executive of FAAN, Mrs. Olubunmi Kuku, made the call at a ‘Stakeholder engagement on carbon emission management’ conference held in Lagos.
She said aviation business is at risk without stakeholders taking collaborative efforts on carbon emissions.
Represented by the director of special duties, Mr Henry Agbebire, the managing director emphasised that aviation industry is highly sensitive to bad weather and climate change.
“This could be imagined through a scenario where the global airspace is not accessible by aircraft for few days due to bad weather.
“This comes with a lot of negative impacts, including economic and social. The aviation industry may be at risk of extinction if such situation persists for years. This invariably means that our business is at risk if we do not take collaborative efforts to ensure reduction and proper management of carbon emissions from our operations,” she said.
Kuku noted that the aviation industry contributes about 2% of the total global carbon dioxide emissions out of which airports contribute about 5%.
She said the percentage contributed by airports is not a mere proportion if its potential negative impacts are critically examined.
She announced that the Airports Council International (ACI) had developed the Airport Carbon Accreditation (ACA) programme, which, according to her, is a robust airport-specific carbon management certification programme developed in line with ISO 14001 standards and the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol.
Its aims include helping airports all over the world to map, report, reduce and manage carbon emissions from their airport operations with the ultimate goal of net-zero emission.
The target, it is believed, will significantly reduce the overall carbon footprint of the aviation industry, if all hands are on deck.
Kuku said FAAN had joined the league of airports that are making efforts to map, report, reduce and manage emissions from their operations through the ACA programme.
She also announced that the Murtala Muhammed International Airport was accredited and certified in 2020 by the ACI for correctly mapping and reporting sources of emissions from the airport, according to the principles of the GHG Protocol and the ACA programme.
“It was noted from mapping of emission sources at the airport that more than 80% of the total emissions since 2020 is from electricity consumption!
As part of the intentional and dedicated efforts of FAAN to decarbonise our airport operations, a robust carbon management plan (CMP) was developed for MMIA. The measures included in our CMP are ambitious and capital intensive.
“Implementation of some of these measures earned the MMIA a full accreditation and certification for Reduction of carbon emissions from the airport by the ACI. The journey ahead of us is still far, as we aim to get higher levels of accreditation and certification in our decarbonisation programme,” she added.
