The Pressing Need for a Strategy to Ramp up Ambition on Mitigating Emissions from Aviation

by Chris Lyle (GreenAir Online/Air Transport Economics) Greenhouse gases from aviation will continue to increase globally despite prevailing mitigation actions, whose effects are well outdistanced by traffic growth. ICAO is in the process of finalising CORSIA, the final link in the Organization’s ‘basket of measures’ defined a decade ago for dealing with CO2 emissions from international aviation. This is a significant accomplishment, but one aimed at levelling off through carbon offsetting rather than actually reducing emissions. Chris Lyle ... argues there is a pressing need for a more ambitious aviation emissions mitigation strategy in the light of the Paris Agreement and the IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C, building on the ICAO basket but going above and beyond the current ICAO process.

In 2009 the air transport industry targeted reducing its net carbon emissions by 50% by 2050 compared to 2005 levels; however, the industry has yet to elaborate on the practicalities of achieving this target. In 2013 the ICAO Assembly agreed on an unsubstantiated ‘aspirational goal’ for a global fuel efficiency improvement of 2% per annum through to 2050. The ICAO Council has had a mandate from the Assembly since 2010 to “explore the feasibility” of a long-term global aspirational goal for mitigation of international aviation emissions, with specific reference added in 2016 “in light of the 2°C and 1.5°C temperature goals of the Paris Agreement”, but the Council continues to equivocate on this.

More definitive and robust targets and actions do need to be established, looking beyond the aviation silo and in the light of increasing and overarching global greenhouse gas emissions exigencies. A target date of 2050 (with intermediate goals and revisits for 2030 and 2040) would seem appropriate both in the context of more general emissions reduction ambitions aimed at that year and given the long lifespan of existing aircraft types.

In order to establish technology driven and demand management targets, a robust evaluation of number of factors needs to be made, including:

● The scope of greenhouse gases to be covered – should others beyond CO2 now be included in mitigation action, if only on the basis of the precautionary principle?

● The scope of services to be covered – should for example business aircraft operations, which are small in terms of contribution but very high in per passenger emissions, be included, particularly if present concepts of supersonic operations evolve towards practice?

● The potential realistic contribution of technology and streamlined operations – is the ICAO 2% per annum fuel efficiency goal practical? ...

● The potential contribution of modal switch to surface transport – will rail travel in particular have an impact at the shorter haul? Should government action be taken to enhance its use relative to air transport?

● Drop-in alternative fuels – will they make a significant reduction when assessed in terms of full life-cycle, land use, price and availability at scale? Could ‘power-to-liquid’ (electrofuels), with their clear environmental sustainability advantages over biofuels, become key?

● Market-based measures – what are their potential and effectiveness beyond CORSIA? Should carbon offsetting, even if of verified high quality, continue to be considered efficacious as an emissions tool? Is the international aviation sector currently favourably biased through exemption from fuel, value added and some other taxes? Are carbon taxes/duties a way forward (see here)? Could they be applied directly on individual passengers (for example, frequent flyers) and shippers?

At the policy level, an iterative approach might be followed, taking some ‘top down’ desirable objectives such as the 2050 industry goal and for comparison a more challenging but possibly necessary ‘net zero’ aviation GHG emissions by 2050, and seeing the extent to which practical factors from ‘bottom up’ would be necessary to achieve each of these objectives.

The ICAO Council has also faced difficulties when developing measures which are beyond the Organization’s usual remit, for example in establishing criteria for determining what constitutes acceptable alternatives to fossil fuels in the context of full life-cycle emissions, and what Emissions Unit Criteria should apply for carbon offsetting.

One elemental weakness in the treatment of international aviation emissions through ICAO is that there is no directly identifiable national commitment, only a global ‘sector-determined’ contribution. Not only is potential action diluted, international aviation is treated in a silo and not in the context of differing national circumstances and the relative contribution of aviation to the economy – notably for cases where tourism is critical. Moreover, while membership of the UNFCCC and ICAO is essentially the same, the UNFCCC’s mandate is to reduce greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere while the general motivation of ICAO is to protect and promote international aviation. The Economist recently expressed concern that ICAO had been “captured by producer interests.”

One action to which consideration might be given at an early date would be to include international aviation into the NDCs of States. This would give States direct accountability, putting aviation mitigation activities in the context of national circumstances including the carbon budget. While this action would preferably be taken at the global level through the UNFCCC, failing that it could be determined by individual States or in regional co-ordination. It would enable (and encourage) individual States or regional groups to take mitigation measures beyond those agreed within ICAO.

A variety of data are nowadays readily available to do this and different forms of attribution could be envisaged (see author’s extended article here). The attribution methodology could even, for example, include a creative form of CBDR. The emissions attributed to a country could be based on the originating market for passengers (round trip, which would tend to apportion towards more wealthy passengers and countries) and origin or> destination market for freight. Consolidated data could be filed without breaching privacy, and public registries used for monitoring and verification. READ MORE