In 30 Years, Your Summer Plane Flight May Be a Little More Expensive. It Could Also Be Carbon-Free.

by Elizabeth Weise (USA Today/Yahoo!) As millions of Americans hop on airplanes heading to favorite vacation spots, the industry is gearing for a bigger journey – one that will tackle removing the carbon emissions from those flights over the next 30 years.

To achieve that goal by 2050, a report released by an international transportation group Thursday found research and support are needed quickly. It will make air travel a little more expensive but won't mean going back to the days of sailing ships and dirigibles.

"We can't wait until 2040 to start making plans and then be like, 'Oops, we don't have the money, this is not achievable,'" said Brandon Graver, a senior researcher at the International Council on Clean Transportation, which produced the study. "We need to ramp up quickly and we need to put in the financial resources to do so."

Getting carbon out of aviation is part of a larger fight to remove it from the global economy. This spring, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said humanity is not on track to stay under the goal set by scientists in 2018 of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) average global temperature rise.

Because jet fuel, effectively kerosene, must pack a lot of energy into a small space, aviation is considered one of the harder-to-decarbonize parts of the economy. But experts say that doesn't mean it's impossible.

There are several solutions in the works, though all require more research, development, investment and regulation to fully implement.

The most pressing is the development of sustainable aviation fuels, or SAFs, now still in their infancy.

The eventual goal is to use cheap and plentiful power from wind and solar installations, together with carbon dioxide from either agricultural residue or direct-air capture, to create the high-energy fuel airplanes need to fly.

The ICCT report offers various scenarios for the aviation industry, All require a shift to more than 60% sustainable aircraft fuel and improvements to aircraft efficiency. and somewhere close to 5% of flights powered by hydrogen fuel cells.

"Over the 30 years it There's also an expected modest reduction of about 2.5% a year in air travel as costs rise.

While lots of initiatives are underway, no single decision has been made. The International Civil Aviation Organization is discussing the matter and is expected to put forward a plan in September. READ MORE

Excerpt from International Council on Clean Transportation: Airlines and governments have committed to achieving net-zero emissions from aviation by mid-century. In this report, we develop a roadmap to evaluate the emission impacts of ICCT scenarios for aviation technology and operations using a new Projection of Aviation Carbon Emissions (PACE) model. Our goal is to assess the extent to which measures can reduce cumulative carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions from global aviation in line with 1.5°C, 1.75°C, and 2°C targets.

Three decarbonization scenarios—Action, Transformation, and Breakthrough—are analyzed along with a Baseline scenario, each built around six important parameters: (1) traffic; (2) aircraft technology; (3) operations; (4) zero-emission planes (ZEPs); (5) sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs); and (6) economic incentives.

Detailed findings of the study include:

In the most ambitious (Breakthrough) scenario, early and sustained government intervention triggers widespread investments in zero-carbon aircraft and fuels, peaking fossil jet fuel use in 2025 and zeroing it out by 2050. Aviation CO₂ is cut by more than 90% below 2019 levels in 2050; cumulative emissions are consistent with 1.75ºC pathway under which aviation doesn’t increase its share of a global carbon budget.
SAFs account for the largest share of CO₂ reduction potential, varying between 59% and 64% across scenarios. Improvements in aircraft technical and operational efficiency contribute an additional one-third of CO₂mitigation. Zero-emission planes powered by hydrogen account for up to 5% of emission reductions in 2050.
Under all scenarios, fuel and ticket costs rise along with the introduction of SAFs. Under the Breakthrough scenario, fuel costs increase by 34% and 70% in 2030 and 2050, respectively, due to the adoption of these more expensive fuels. Thus, policies like a SAF mandate, low carbon fuel standard, carbon taxes, and/or a frequent flier levy will be needed to bridge the price gap between alternative and fossil jet fuels.

Overall, we conclude that new technologies under development can cut aviation CO₂ to near zero in 2050, but that immediate action is needed from governments to peak emissions this decade to put aviation on a 1.75ºC pathway. Either atmospheric carbon removals or curbs to traffic growth will be needed to meet a 1.5ºC temperature pathway.