Study Finds a Carbon Gap of 220 Million Tonnes in 2023 Will Require Offsetting by the Airline Industry
(GreenAir Online) Even with improvements in aircraft technology, airline efficiencies and operational improvements, together with the introduction of biofuels, there will be a sizeable carbon gap between commercial aviation forecasts and industry targets by 2023, according to a study by consultancy ICF International. Without these improvements and biofuel take-up, ICF estimates commercial aviation will produce 53% more carbon in 2023 than today, leading to a 33% gap with the industry’s goal of capping net emissions from 2020. The consultancy’s own forecast is for global CO2 emissions from aviation to reach 942 million tonnes by 2020 and so form the baseline for the industry’s carbon-neutral growth target. With efficiencies and biofuels, the annual carbon gap would be in the region of 220 million tonnes by 2023, which ICF says will have to be mitigated through carbon offsetting.
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ICF notes industry groups and individual airlines have built up hopes that biofuels will be a solution to aviation emissions but its study is less optimistic about the prospect.
“Market forces do not appear aligned to make biofuels cost competitive with traditional kerosene in the near term or medium term,” says the paper. “There is little appetite for government subsidies to cover this cost differential, as the United States historically did for corn-based ethanol production or as many governments have done to support renewable electricity. Unfortunately, biofuels are unlikely to close the full gap between projected aviation carbon and the industry’s targets.”
However, ICF estimates that biofuels could contribute to a further reduction of 33 million tonnes of CO2 in 2023, bringing the carbon gap down to 220 tonnes. READ MORE Download study
