Europe’s major aviation countries experienced declines in CO2 emissions from departing flights around the European average: France -55%, Germany -53% and the United Kingdom -60%. Tourism-reliant countries recorded steeper declines, for example Greece -64%, Italy -65% and Spain -64%. The reduction in emissions from flights from the Netherlands was just 41%. (See table below.)

A major reason for the decline in emissions of just 30% from Belgian flights was due to the high proportion of cargo flights, which increased from 11% to 25% in 2020 compared to 2019, reported a Eurocontrol ‘data snapshot’. Cargo flights use larger aircraft and fly further than the Belgian average, it said, and therefore generate above-average CO2 emissions. A second reason was that due to short-haul cancellations, the average scheduled flight was much longer than in 2019, so emitted more CO2.

Brussels Airport said its cargo operations had experienced greater demand than ever in 2020, experiencing a 2.2% year-on-year increase in cargo volumes. The strongest growth was in the full-freighter segment, which was up 43% on 2019, and express services saw a year-on-year increase of 18%. This year, the number of vaccine shipments from Brussels Airport is already rising.

“The year 2020 truly was a very unusual and difficult year for the aviation industry. Fortunately, our cargo department has been in great demand throughout the crisis, particularly for the transport of pharmaceuticals and perishables, and for e-commerce,” said the airport’s Chief Executive, Arnaud Feist. “The major role Brussels Airport played since the end of November in the transport of Covid-19 vaccines will undoubtedly continue throughout 2021.”

However, airlines are having to dramatically reduce their capacity with the stricter travel restrictions now being applied across Europe, said Eurocontrol.

“It is clear that the months of February and March will be exceptionally low across the network, except for cargo, some business traffic and skeleton schedule services,” predicted Eamonn Brennan, Director General of Eurocontrol. “Even April is expected to perform very poorly, with only a limited pick-up for the Easter period. Flights in Europe will probably only be around 25-30% of normal. It is a complete disaster for European aviation – an industry that’s already on its knees.”

At a global level, new forecasts from airports association ACI World indicate a slow, uneven and uncertain recovery in 2021. By the end of 2020, the global airport industry had experienced a reduction of more than 6 billion passengers, representing a decline of 64.2% on the previous year, according to ACI’s latest Covid-19 impact analysis. Its World Airport Traffic Forecasts report shows that over the next five years, passenger traffic worldwide is expected to grow at an annualised rate of +2.4%. While markets with significant domestic traffic are not expected to recover to pre-Covid levels before 2023, markets with a significant share of international traffic will recover much more slowly, expects ACI.

The report shows the Asia-Pacific and Latin America-Caribbean regions are predicted to experience the fastest growth, achieving five-year growth rates of +3.5% and +3.1%, respectively. Africa, Europe, the Middle East and North America will see a more modest expansion, with growth ranging from +1.2% to +1.9%, it says.

China is expected to become the largest passenger market in 2031, surpassing the US, and is projected to continue to dominate passenger rankings in 2040 with just over 3.6 billion passengers, an 18.3% share of the global passenger traffic market. The US and India follow, with 2.9 and 1.3 billion passengers, respectively. Together, the three countries will handle almost 40% of global passenger traffic.

The decline of CO2 emissions from European flights in 2020 compared with 2019:

Top photo: Vaccines being loaded at Brussels Airport

Merging data from ICAO, OAG and individual airlines using Lissys’ Piano 5 software, ICCT’s Global Aviation Carbon Assessment model calculated commercial aviation (passenger and cargo) CO2 emissions rose from 706 million tonnes (Mt) in 2013 to 920 Mt in 2019, figures close to the industry’s own estimates. Passenger transport accounted for 785 Mt, or 85%, of commercial aviation CO2 emissions in 2019, with the remaining 15% (135 Mt) from freight carriage that was divided between belly freight on passenger aircraft (8%) and dedicated freighter operations (7%).

The top five departure countries for passenger aviation-related carbon emissions in 2019 were the United States (with a 23% share), China (13%), the United Kingdom (4.1%), Japan (3.3%) and Germany (2.9%). While still the largest, the US market is growing more slowly over time than the rest of the world and is the most carbon intensive of the major markets, emitting 12 per cent more CO2 per RPK than the global average.

Globally, two-thirds of all flights in 2019 were domestic but only accounted for around one-third of global RPKs and 40% of global passenger transport-related CO2 emissions. CO2 emissions from international flights increased by 35% between 2013 and 2019, outpacing the 30% increase in emissions from domestic flights.

Between 2013 and 2019, the total number of flight departures worldwide increased by 23%, RPKs increased 50% and passenger transport-related emissions by 33%. ICCT’s analysts found that RPKs correlate well with CO2 emissions after accounting for improvements in fuel efficiency. That RPKs increased faster than emissions during this period suggests that fuel efficiency improved, resulting in a 12% decrease in carbon intensity.

On average, global commercial aircraft operations emitted 90 grams of CO2 per RPK in 2019, which was 2% lower than in 2018 and 12% lower than in 2013. While domestic operations are included, the change is in line with ICAO’s aspirational goal of 2% fuel efficiency improvement annually for international aviation.

Flights within the regions of Asia/Pacific and Europe saw the largest intra-region increase in passenger CO2 emissions since 2013, at 50% and 35% respectively. Emissions in several regions grew slower than the global average: Middle East, 27%; Africa, 21%; and Latin America/Caribbean, 19%. The smallest growth in passenger emissions for a major market, 16%, was observed for flights within North America.

The least efficient route groups between 2013 and 2019 were flights within Africa and within the Middle East, emitting more than 30% more CO2 to transport one passenger one kilometre than the global average. This was primarily due to the use of older, fuel-inefficient aircraft and low passenger load factors. However, there were improvements in fuel efficiency of 4-5% for these route groups from 2018 to 2019, higher than the global average yearly increase in fuel efficiency between 2013 and 2019.

The largest gains in fuel efficiency between 2013 and 2019 were for flights between the Asia/Pacific and Latin America/Caribbean regions, which can be credited to the replacement of Airbus A340 and Boeing 767 aircraft with more fuel-efficient Boeing 787 Dreamliners. Flights departing a US airport had an average CO2 intensity 6% higher than the global average.

Around 61% of passenger transport emissions in 2019 came from international aviation, although domestic flights made up two-thirds of all departures. Together, the United States and China were responsible for 185 Mt of CO2 from domestic flights, or over 60% of emissions from global domestic operations in 2019, which was an increase of 31% since 2013.

Responsible for 39% of global passenger CO2 emissions, domestic aviation falls outside the jurisdiction of ICAO and the report’s authors suggest national and regional measures and policies are needed to curb emissions from this important part of the air transport sector.

They say the study highlights the significant differences in the carbon intensity of flights at all levels: market, aircraft class, aircraft type and seating class.

“Better emissions disclosure, for example requiring airlines to disclose the carbon intensity of each itinerary to consumers at the time of purchase, would help consumers steer their business to lower emitting carriers,” they recommend.

Additionally, they suggest carbon pricing for aviation could be improved and made more equitable by properly reflecting the emissions due to premium travel, with fees graduated based upon seating class so that premium travellers pay more and help generate revenue for climate mitigation in a progressive way.

“We should be under no illusion that the decarbonisation path for aviation is an easy one,” ATAG’s Executive Director, Michael Gill, told the virtual conference. “But our Waypoint 2050 analysis shows that decarbonisation is possible, and in a number of different ways. We now need the commitment from governments, the energy industry, researchers and from the aviation sector itself to make it happen.”

In its ‘Vision for 2050’, the Waypoint report expects the aviation sector to be transporting around 10 billion passengers a year, more than twice 2019 levels but 16% less than previous forecasts due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. This represents a compound annual growth rate of 3% from 2019 to 2050. Much of the growth will take place in Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America, although significant growth will remain in North America and Europe. The industry sees three possible limits to growth: environmental concerns from consumers, governments moving to reduce growth, or a shift to other modes of transport, such as rail. However, it expects these to have limited impact. Covid-19 will have a major impact though on the sector’s carbon emissions in the short term and IATA expects this year they will be around 60% lower than in 2019.

New energy sources in 2050 will enable electric and hybrid-electric aircraft – with virtually no CO2 emissions at all – on short- and medium-haul routes, connecting secondary cities and small communities with larger hubs for onward long-haul flights. Most long-haul operations will use aircraft a generation beyond those that are flying today, with nearly all completely powered by sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) from a variety of sources, including power-to-liquid (PtL) fuels that are made by combining low-carbon electricity with CO2 removed from the air.

Although aircraft technology innovations and improvements in operations and infrastructure will continue to bring fuel and carbon reductions, the Waypoint report says the single largest opportunity to meet and go beyond the industry’s 2050 goal is the rapid and worldwide scaling up of SAF and new energy sources. A nearly complete shift to SAF, with a requirement of up to 450-500 million tonnes, will be needed, it says. This is achievable without impacting food or water use through using a range of available feedstocks, from non-food crops to waste sources and eventually a shift to PtL fuels and hydrogen. However, it will require support from government and the energy sector, with policies to ensure feedstocks are channelled towards aviation and not to other transport sectors where alternative energy sources are available.

The report explores three consolidated scenarios for how air transport can meet its long-term goal. Which of these scenarios plays out over time will likely be determined by how investment is prioritised in both SAF deployment and radical new aircraft technologies; whether energy providers can massively scale up SAF and hydrogen production at the same time; and if governments, finance institutions and consumers play the required role to accelerate the energy transition. There is a good case for current fossil fuel consumption subsidies around the world – worth $4.4 trillion over the last decade – to be re-directed towards low-carbon energy, it argues.

“For sustainable aviation fuel in particular, we need support from governments in the next decade to help set the stage for the future of low carbon connectivity,” said Gill. “These new fuels are already flying today – over 270,000 commercial flights have taken off so far – but are still a tiny part of our overall fuel mix. We know that we can begin the energy transition away from fossil fuels in earnest, but we need support to do so.”

Reaching the 2050 goal comes with a significant price tag for the sector, points out the report.

“If airlines are investing in new aircraft, they may have less ability to also invest heavily in SAF scale-up. Likewise, some significant decisions need to be made: does it make more sense to have a singular focus on traditional liquid SAF or wait a decade for electric or hydrogen aircraft to be available,” it questions.

“The reality is the sector will need to investigate all options and pursue those that make the most sense, but there is unlikely to be bandwidth, financing or resources to push all levers at once.”

The report acknowledges that in the event the contribution from technology, operations and infrastructure improvements, plus emissions reduction from SAF, are not sufficient to meet the 2050 goal, there could be a need for the industry to compensate remaining emissions through offsetting beyond the intended ending of ICAO’s global carbon offsetting scheme CORSIA in 2035.

Sources of offsets could change significantly in the future, it says, and as well as forestry and natural climate solutions, technologies such as carbon capture and storage (CCS) and direct air carbon capture and sequestration (DACCS) could form the basis for viable offsets. However, it warns there is likely to be a large amount of residual CO2 emissions still being generated across the economy in 2050 and beyond, and there could be competition to secure remaining offsets, which could result in scarcity and high prices.

The report argues the aviation sector’s 2050 goal to halve net CO2 emissions on a 2005 baseline is compatible with the Paris Agreement goal to limit global temperature rise to “well below 2 degrees C above pre-industrial levels”. To meet a 1.5 degree C goal will require a peaking of emissions across the economy between 2020 and 2030 and a rapid reduction in emissions towards net-zero emissions by mid-century.

“For hard-to-decarbonise sectors such as air transport, meeting the 1.5 degree C goal and keeping a small percentage of overall human emissions will be a major challenge,” it says. “For aviation to play a role in helping to achieve the 1.5 degree C pathway, it is likely that global aviation would need to reach net-zero emissions in the middle years of the century (2050 to 2070). This is in line with the projected post-2050 situation outlined in this report, finding that aviation could reach net-zero emissions by 2060/65, but assumes all other sectors also make aggressive cuts in CO2 emissions in line with their technical ability to do so.

“Governments are now taking action and setting ambitious climate targets. It is recognised that some regions may be able to transition their aviation industry to net-zero carbon emissions earlier than others.”

The industry report calls on all governments to set a long-term CO2 goal for international aviation at ICAO’s next Assembly in 2022 that was compatible with the most recent scientific evidence from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

In an address to the ATAG conference, ICAO Council President Salvatore Sciacchitano said the Covid-19 crisis provided an opportunity to build back the commercial aviation sector greener and more sustainably, including its role in the social and climate impacts of international travel and tourism. He welcomed the recent announcement of the commitment by the oneworld airline alliance to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, adding green aviation innovations would feed into ICAO’s exploration of the feasibility for a long-term goal.