On 18-20 March 2015 in Warsaw the Seminar on environmental protection in international civil aviation and the Seminar on National Action Plans were held. Both seminars were addressed to representatives of the States of the Europe and North America region (EUR/NAT), especially for Focal Points dealing with the protection of the environment and the National Action Plans. The seminars were organized by the Civil Aviation Authority in cooperation with the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).
The seminars were attended by representatives of over 20 Member States and aviation organizations: ACI Europe, IATA, UNDP, NISA and FAA, representatives of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Development and the specialists of the Civil Aviation Authority. The seminars was conducted by the Chief of Environmental Unit Ms. Jane Hupe. The delegation included the ICAO Secretariat representatives Ms. Blandine Ferrier, Mr. Neil Dickson and Mr. Sven Halle. The seminar was opened by President of the Civil Aviation Authority, Mr. Piotr Ołowski, who stressed out that this essential for the region event is will fill a gap in the knowledge needed to improve the environmental protection and reduce aviation CO2 emissions.
During the first seminar the results of the ICAO Committee on Aviation Environmental Protection (CAEP) were presented, as well as trends in the field of environmental protection, aircraft noise, air quality, global emissions, alternative fuels, MBMs, and assistance to Member States. The representative of ACI Europe also presented a presentation on "green airports".
The second seminar was directed to the representatives of European aviation authorities involved in matters concerning the protection of the environment. During the meeting, the ICAO experts provided information on how to create and update the National Action Plans and plans to reduce emissions (APER). The participants had the opportunity to learn the practical use of tools developed by ICAO including calculators which could calculate the expected CO2 emissions. The participants also obtained the information on the methodology used by ICAO. The participants presented the information pertaining the status of implementation and update of NAPs in specific countries.
The Seminars were organized to assist Member States from the EUR/NAT Region in the implementation of the National Action Plans and present good practices in the field of aviation environmental protection. During both seminars the simultaneous translation from English into Russian was provided. The presentations presented during the workshop will be available on the ICAO website.
Seminars were held in Poland as a series of subsequent meetings in different regions of the world. So far in 2014 ICAO organized the seminars for the Asia-Pacific (APAC) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Eastern and Southern Africa (ESAF) in Nairobi, Kenya, Western and Southern Africa (WACAF) in Yatoundé in Cameroon, South America (SAM) in Lima, Peru and North and Central America and the Caribbean (NACC) in Mexico City, Mexico. On 10-12 March the Middle East (MID) Regional Seminars in Dubai, United Arab Emirates were held.
