As the year winds down and I begin taking stock, a couple of things come to mind. Here we are standing on the verge of NextGen moving to the next level. We’ve begun fast convergence as a community this year, rallying behind NextGen. I have a button from the National Alliance to Advance NextGen – NextGen Now! It had its start in the airports community. RTCA Task Force 5 produced its recommendations for NextGen mid-term priorities. It was driven by the NAS user community. The FAA has said it will embrace these recommendations and is in the process of awarding a family of major NextGen contracts to undertake the largest investment in FAA history. The aviation industry is sending letters of NextGen support to the Congress that carry signatures of the CEOs of many airlines and aviation industry leaders. Yes, there are competing interests and potential obstacles, but the planets seem to have aligned to support NextGen.

On another planet of sorts, the Copenhagen climate talks have now come to a close. Despite a huge build-up of expectations concerning emission limits, financial assistance, and a formalized process going forward, it appears that very little of substance was agreed to. On one level, developed nations are asking developing nations to cut back on the growth of their carbon emissions. It’s easy for developed nations to say this, since they’ve already gotten theirs. Economic development and growth is energy-intensive by its very nature. Developing countries need to produce energy and lots of it at the lowest possible cost, if they are to support rapid growth. This is exactly what developed countries did in the past to economically get to where they are today.

The biggest issue at Copenhagen was about developed countries providing financial assistance to developing countries. The Europeans had been pushing for $100B per year by the year 2020, while the US proposed $10B per year by 2012. If you plot a curve to get to either one these points, I suspect you’ll see that the curves are not all that different. Yet, the debates have made it seem like they were worlds apart. Toward the end of the conference, President Obama said that the US would support the European proposal. In the end, the final agreement called for developed countries to provide assistance in the amount of $30B by 2012 ($10B/year from 2010 thru 2012) and $100B/year by 2020. But, the agreement is not legally binding. The binding language will be deferred to a conference in Mexico a year from now – leaving one less year to get to the 2012 total and 2020 yearly target. The President of the United States can only do so much to commit the US to funding assistance. Ultimately the Congress has to appropriate the funds. It will be interesting to see what does in fact become legally binding and what our share of the bill will be among the developed nations. Up until now, the timing for the Copenhagen discussions has been poor at best. The US and Europe are in a recession. The US seems to have hit bottom, but unemployment continues to be a major, continuing problem. Europe isn’t much better off, especially with ongoing reports of financial issues in Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain. We can only hope that the economies of all developed nations improves soon, so climate change assistance, as well as a myriad of other expenses, can be more properly addressed.

One of the side debates was about the definition of “developing country.” Secretary of State Clinton has said they include only the poorest and neediest. This plays well at home, since it strongly suggests we are not funding China – their GDP growth rate is 8.9%, for goodness sakes! But, if we say we are not funding China, should we stop asking them to back off on their emissions? China’s the most obvious case, but there are a number of developing nations that are doing pretty well at the moment, failing the “poorest and neediest” criterion.

While the climate talks largely have fizzled, the problem isn’t going away. If anything, the disappointment following the Copenhagen conference could heighten the public outcry for truly meaningful action (not to be confused with a political declaration of meaningful results). Aviation must remain vigilant and committed to the reduction of carbon emissions. There is much that can be done to make our air transportation system more fuel and carbon-efficient. That’s exactly what Metron Aviation is focused on with our research and suite of air traffic management products.

About two years ago, I visited Japan for the very first time. My ancestors came from Japan, so most people were surprised to hear that I had never been there before. I had been invited to give a talk at a conference sponsored by Japan Railway – on climate change. During my trip, I had the opportunity to travel from Kyoto to Tokyo by Shinkansen, more commonly known as the bullet train. I asked the concierge at my hotel in Kyoto to make reservations to get me to Tokyo by the appointed time. When I went to the train station to catch the train, I was amazed to find that there was a bullet train to Tokyo every 3-9 minutes, most of them running every 3-6 minutes! I had been imagining there was one every hour or two. After all of this time, I still think it’s amazing.

Many people from the US have ridden the Shinkansen, the TGV or DB-ICE in Europe, or high speed trains elsewhere in the world, and they come away asking why can’t we have this at home? While in Japan, I had the opportunity to talk to the Chairman of Japan Railway and some of his executives. I learned that they are privately financing the construction of a maglev line from Tokyo-Nagoya-Kyoto-Osaka, boring long distances through mountains in the process. They told me that over ten years ago they had been asked to help the US Department of Transportation do a feasibility study for high speed rail in the Northeast Corridor (Washington-Philadelphia-New York-Boston). They said that the case for high speed rail clearly was compelling and economically feasible. When I’ve had discussions with transportation experts here, invariably they throw up their hands and point to the right-of-way barriers that prevent implementing high speed rail.

Think about what is being said. Think about where we will be in 2050, if we don’t change course. In the broader scheme of things, as a society we must find ways of doing things in the most efficient way possible. Short haul transportation between major cities in the Northeast Corridor to a large extent should be done via high speed rail. It would alleviate unnecessary airspace congestion, reduce delays, save fuel and reduce carbon emissions. As we consider NextGen in the broader context, we must begin thinking intermodal — not just about air transportation, but all modes of transportation. NextGen is a strategic component of the larger transportation system. Air traffic flow management is but a component of multi-modal passenger flow management. Air must fit in with all forms of transportation, and transportation must fit in with the economy and the environment. All of the pieces will need to fit together to get us where we need to be by 2025 or 2050 for future generations.

As we reflect on the future, especially at this time of the year, let’s recommit ourselves to building a better place for future generations. We must find new ways of tackling these huge, old problems. Certainly we want to avoid having our grandchildren scream at us, asking “What in the heck were you thinking?”