14 November 2023: Last week, EUROCONTROL and CANSO organised a conference on the non-CO2 effects of aviation and the impact of contrails on the climate. The topic is very high on the aeropolitical agenda and is a focus for the industry. The The scientific consensus is that the exact effect of contrails on the climate, especially over the time, still needs to be examined. However, it is certain that persistent contrails do have an important and peak warming effect, especially at night.

During the two-day conference, scientists, policymakers and stakeholders gathered to discuss this topic, which has been in focus since the IPCC report in 1994, and has become a major issue on the political agenda in the past few years, mainly because contrails are very difficult and uncertain to measure. 

There is an enormous programme and variety of research focussing on measurements, tracking and reporting and many methods were presented during the conference. From a political point of view, the institutions reminded us of the role of monitoring and reporting with the MRV in the EU ETS regulation that will help reduce this uncertainty.

During the conference, EUROCONTROL announced the launch of a network for a common repository of contrail observation data in collaboration with Airbus and Thales. This new network is called Contrail Net and will gather European research experts in order to create a common repository of contrail observation data to advance the aviation sector’s efforts to reduce the climate impact of non-CO2 aviation emissions, in particular contrails and nitrogen oxides (NOx). The aim is to make available the common repository of annotated observation data to existing and future research initiatives for them to develop their own contrail identification and evaluation algorithms.

All the presentations and the recordings from the conference can be found at this link: CANSO/EUROCONTROL Sustainable Skies Conference: Contrails in Focus | EUROCONTROL [1]