CANSO-EUROCONTROL Sustainable Skies Conference – Contrails in Focus

The global push for climate neutrality and sustainability has put the spotlight on the aviation industry’s impact on non-CO₂ emissions, with contrails and associated cirrus clouds coming under scrutiny.

To explore this key environmental issue, CANSO & EUROCONTROL held the Sustainable Skies Conference: Contrails in Focus, at EUROCONTROL’s Brussels headquarters on 7-8 November 2023.

The overall goal of the event was to bring together scientists, researchers, the aviation industry, policy makers and other stakeholders to improve the understanding of the formation and characteristics of contrails and contrail-induced cirrus clouds, together with their impact on climate – and to explore potential mitigation measures to minimise their occurrence.

Over the course of the two days, world-leading experts:

• took stock of the current state of knowledge on the topic;
• explored the state-of-the-art methods for detecting and monitoring contrails and cirrus clouds;
• looked at current methods and technologies for predicting the formation of contrails and cirrus clouds and estimating their impact on the climate (and the interdependencies with CO₂); and
• discussed possible ways of minimising contrail formation and the challenges of operationalising mitigation measures at scale.

The first day focussed on presenting the latest scientific insights and ongoing research on contrails, while the second day featured panel debates and more strategic discussions.