Within the cloud trailing the aircraft are the various gases and particulates emitted by burning jet fuel (kerosene). The climate impacts of jet aircraft emissions are summarized in the graphic below, produced by the German site atmosfair, which references material from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). By 2050, commercial aircraft emissions could triple given the projected growth of passenger air travel and freight.Ĭommercial aviation’s climate change impact is complex, reflecting the variety of emissions from operations at the surface up to cruise altitudes as high as 43,000 feet, across continents and oceans, and over varied time spans. Both categories have a history of steady growth, and the trend will continue. In 2018, passenger transport produced 81 percent of global commercial aviation emissions and air freight generated the remaining 19 percent. In this issue brief, we will look at both categories of commercial aviation: passenger travel and air freight. Updated analysis in the journal Atmospheric Environment in January 2021 concluded aviation’s climate impact accounted for 3.5 percent of total anthropogenic warming in 2011 and was likely the same percentage in 2018.
Non-CO2 effects, such as warming induced by aircraft contrails, add to the total climate influence of aviation. While this may seem like a relatively small amount, consider that if global commercial aviation had been a country in the 2019 national GHG emissions standings, the industry would rank number six in the world between Japan and Germany. Globally, aviation produced 2.4 percent of total CO2 emissions in 2018. transportation emissions, and account for three percent of the nation’s total greenhouse gas (GHG) production. EPA reports that commercial airplanes and large business jets contribute 10 percent of U.S. The United States, with the world’s largest commercial air traffic system, accounted for 200 million tons (23 percent) of the 2017 global CO2 total. In 2019 that value reached 920 million tons, having increased approximately 30 percent in six years. According to the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT), global CO2 from commercial aviation was 707 million tons in 2013. In the last two decades, carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from commercial aviation worldwide grew at a slower pace than the growth of the industry, but emissions from aviation have accelerated in recent years as increasing commercial air traffic continued to raise the industry’s contribution to global emissions. While our collective use of automobiles, our production of electricity, and the industrial and agricultural sectors each exceed the climate change impact of commercial aviation, passenger air travel was producing the highest and fastest growth of individual emissions before the pandemic, despite a significant improvement in efficiency of aircraft and flight operations over the last 60 years.īetween 19 in the United States, engine and design technology advances, improvements in air traffic operations, denser seat configurations, and higher passenger loads together reduced the energy intensity of air travel, expressed as British Thermal Units (BTUs) per passenger mile, by 77 percent. The “hypermobility” of air travel is available to greater numbers of people worldwide, with rapid growth in aviation projected for developing nations and sustained growth in the large established aviation markets of developed countries. By 2019, the total annual world-wide passenger count was 4.56 billion.
In 1960, 100 million passengers traveled by air, at the time a relatively expensive mode of transportation available only to a small fraction of the public.
Subsequent briefs will feature the aviation industry’s emission mitigation efforts and commitments to reduce its contribution to climate change, as well as the effects of a warming planet on industry operations. This issue brief examines the impact the growth of air travel and freight will have on greenhouse gas emissions. Revised in June 2022 (originally published in October 2019)
#Carbon emissions by industry series#
See our related article series on sustainable aviation fuels
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