VANCOUVER: The lead spokesman for most of the world's airlines challenged the commercial aerospace industry to develop a passenger aircraft with zero carbon emissions. Kevin Donereports

Giovanni Bisignani, director general of the International Air Transport Association (Iata), the trade association for most of the world's airlines, said the industry must develop such an aircraft within the next 50 years. Aviation's carbon footprint was growing, he said, and that was not "politically acceptable, for any industry. Climate change will limit our future."

In an attempt to galvanise the aviation industry to respond to the growing environmental pressures on air travel, Bisignani told the Iata annual meeting in Vancouver that climate change was a real concern for airline customers and had become a political priority for many governments.

Some of the potential building blocks for a carbon-free future were already available, he said, including fuel cell technology. The first solar-powered aircraft had been built and it was possible to make fuel from biomass.

Iata also called on global leaders in aerospace - the US, Europe, Canada, China, Brazil, Russia and Japan - to co-ordinate basic research and then to compete to apply it effectively.

A green industry was "absolutely achievable," he said. The aerospace sector had proved it could produce "amazing results" by going "in a short 50 years from the Wright brothers to the jet age" and had improved fuel efficiency by 70 per cent in the last 40 years.