THE COVID-19 CRISIS HAS CHANGED everything for the airline industry-including attitudes toward the sector's contribution to climate change. As the recovery gets underway, airlines know they will need to do more than simply carry on with sustainability plans initiated before the pandemic. The industry's global answer to the question of how to combat aviation's contribution to climate change hit the headlines early in the pandemic. As air traffic slumped, airlines called for easing the baseline emissions-reduction target incorporated in the International Civil Aviation Organization's (ICAO) Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (Corsia) to reflect the sudden drop in emissions caused by the pandemic. And ICAO agreed in June 2020 to set 2019 emissions as the offset target for its initial three-year phase instead of the planned average of 2019 and 2020 figures, lightening the short-term burden for airlines devastated by the crisis.
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