Pioneering Offsets and Carbon Removal Technologies To Address Aviation’s Residual Emissions at American Airlines

American Airlines
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NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / September 12, 2024 / American Airlines

Originally published in American Airlines' 2023 Sustainability Report

Voluntary Carbon Markets

Aviation is regarded as one of the sectors that is hardest to abate in terms of climate impact. Many of the decarbonization technologies needed do not yet exist, are not yet economically feasible or are not expected to scale quickly enough to achieve the insector reductions needed to reach net zero by 2050. As a result, to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement, the aviation sector will need to rely on carbon offsets and removals to neutralize residual emissions. The availability of high-quality offsets and removals requires a well-functioning voluntary carbon market and investment in innovation to strengthen the reputation of this marketplace.

How American is helping accelerate solutions

Reducing emissions within our operations is and will remain American's priority. To date, we have not purchased any offsets as part of advancing our net zero commitment, but we recognize that carbon offsets and removals will need to play a future role in eliminating aviation's residual emissions.

We are helping to accelerate and scale the CO2 removal market as the inaugural customer of Graphyte, whose innovative carbon casting process removes and stores CO2 permanently and cost-effectively. (See page 26 for more information.) American also partners with Cool Effect, a leading nonprofit provider of carbon offsets, to give our customers the opportunity to purchase offsets.

The Potential

  • Necessary for addressing residual emissions for hard-to-abate sectors like aviation

  • Can create cobenefits in areas such as air and water quality, biodiversity, human health and job creation

  • Can bring social and economic benefits such as human health improvements and job creation in rural communities

Actions Needed

  1. Collaboration among market participants to agree on standards and verification to promote integrity

  2. Sound public policies and oversight for effective functioning of the market

  3. New financing models to mobilize more capital and increase participation in the voluntary carbon market

The Challenges

  • Supply of quality, robust and verifiable carbon offsets

  • Cost of carbon removals - and the need for technological innovation to bring down costs

  • Degree of permanence of removals

  • Verifying additionality, meaning the project only exists because of funding from carbon markets

Accelerating Low-Cost, Permanent Carbon Removal

Graphyte, backed by Breakthrough Energy Ventures, is a carbon removal startup that is pioneering a new pathway for low-cost, permanent carbon removal. Graphyte's Carbon Casting process leverages readily available biomass, such as residues from timber and farming operations, that have already captured significant CO2 from the atmosphere through photosynthesis. The biomass is then dried to prevent decomposition, converted into dense carbon blocks, wrapped in an environmentally safe polymer barrier and monitored in a state-of-theart underground storage facility. Relative to existing carbon removal approaches, Carbon Casting permanently removes and stores CO2 using significantly less energy and at a substantially lower cost. In early 2024, Graphyte began operating the largest carbon removal facility in the world, its Loblolly facility in Arkansas.5

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