Plans by the aviation industry to double air passenger traffic by 2050 are ‘irreconcilable’ with Europe’s climate goals, a new report by Transport & Environment (T&E) has suggested.
According to the report, even if efficiency measures are introduced, airlines will burn 59% more fuel in 2050 than in 2019.
By the mid part of the decade, planes taking off from EU airports will burn through 21.1 Mt of fossil kerosene, representing a yearly extraction of 1.9 billion barrels of crude oil.
Transport & Environment made its assessment based on projections by aircraft manufacturers Airbus and Boeing, which suggest that passenger traffic from EU airports will more than double in 2050 compared to 2019.
‘Paradigm shift’
“The numbers leave you speechless,” commented Jo Dardenne, aviation director at T&E. “The aviation industry’s plans for growth are completely irreconcilable with Europe’s climate goals and the scale of the climate crisis.
“A paradigm shift and real climate leadership are needed now to address the problem, or Europe’s planes will be eating up everyone else’s resources.”
While the industry’s reliance on Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) is on the increase, the sheer volume of activity means that the sector could still be burning through as much fossil kerosene in 2049 as it did in 2023, even when using 42% of SAF, as required by the EU’s law on green fuels.
Under the Airbus and Boeing growth scenarios, European aviation emissions will be only 3% lower in 2049 than in 2019, T&E noted.
Policy interventions
Urgent policy interventions, including halting airport expansion, curbing corporate travel to 50% of 2019 levels, addressing frequent flying, and reversing the under-taxation of aviation, will be necessary to ensure decarbonisation targets can still be met.
The European Commission has set a goal to reduce emissions by 90% by 2040 compared to 1990, as part of its broader sustainable transport targets, yet even with more conservative growth projections, emissions from aviation would still increase by 46% by 2040 compared to 1990 levels.
“We applaud the European Commission’s world-beating 90% emissions reduction target,” Dardenne added. “But such a target is completely meaningless without concrete policies to reduce emissions from aviation. The sector has been given countless free passes in its history – now it is time to change course.
“The EU needs to come up with a plan to address the tonnes and tonnes of aviation emissions released in the atmosphere every year.” Read more here.
