The aviation industry is championing offsetting, carbon removals and other technical quick fixes to help it fly under the radar of climate action and avoid actual emissions reductions. Bastien Bonnet-Cantalloube explains.
I recently attended, on behalf of Carbon Market Watch, Aviation Carbon 2024, which took place at Heathrow Airport in London. Every year, the event brings stakeholders from the aviation and carbon markets sectors.
This year, I participated in a panel discussion about the EU and UK Emissions Trading Systems (ETS). I took the opportunity to present the findings of our latest study comparing two main carbon pricing instruments for aviation: the EU ETS and the UN-backed Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA).
Participating in the event was also an opportunity to get a feel for how the aviation industry approaches the latest regulatory initiatives and market evolutions. This included some highly troubling statements about the role of carbon removals, CORSIA, technology, and more.
Climate panaceas
Carbon dioxide removals (CDR) were all over the place at the conference, which gave the impression that part of the aviation industry had already given up on reducing its own emissions – often problematically labelled “residual” – even though they continue to climb.
Some representatives of the CDR industry were making big claims about upcoming scale increases and cost decreases. Their talk spread the illusion that carbon removals can solve all of our environmental problems and that we should continue filling up our cars and flying our planes with fossil fuels because CDR will magically clean up the problem in the near future. Just as worryingly, these assertions, filled with oil-backed, vested business interests, were not challenged during another panel discussion, be it from the moderator or other panellists, amongst whom was an academic.
So why would continuing with business as usual while trying to compensate with removals be a bad idea?
Carbon removals are immature and expensive technologies. The current cost for direct air carbon capture and storage (DACCS) is currently still in the range of $600-1,000 per tonne of CO2.
This experimental technology still needs to be thoroughly tested in the real world. If we can and do scale it up, we will need it not to compensate for rising emissions today, but to balance out truly residual emissions and to shift towards net negative emissions.
What should constitute ‘residual emissions’ is still far from being set in stone, though. It must rely on a societal consensus on what remaining non-abated emissions we can consider essential to society. This would certainly not cover all current aviation emissions.
On top of depending on the future promise of an uncertain, immature and unaffordable technology, prioritising DACCS over green hydrogen-based fuels and demand reduction perpetuates the intensive use of oil. This, in turn, continues the dependency on often unreliable and undemocratic trade partners, which helps prop up regimes with bad records in respecting human rights – going entirely against the “strategic autonomy” objectives that EU leaders say they are pursuing.
This problematic approach also turns a blind eye to the other environmental effects and planetary boundaries, as it doesn’t address the urgent need to reduce air pollution, particularly around airports, or noise, which both clean fuels and reduced flying can help achieve.
Last but not least, it contradicts scientific knowledge about the need to phase out the use of fossil fuels to limit the climate crisis. Refusing to embrace the switch from oil will only delay the transition to renewables in the aviation sector by slowing down the development of these technologies. The fixation on carbon removals deters real and robust climate action in the sector.
Yet, unfortunately, this trend of peddling CDR as a panacea for our climate woes is only likely to get worse in the next few years unless policy action is taken. First and foremost that means separating emissions reductions and removals in policy and targets to ensure action on all fronts.
Under the radar of climate action
Aviation represents a significant contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for more than 2% of humanity’s carbon footprint. This share at least doubles when considering non-CO2 effects, which further exacerbate aviation’s climate impact. The sector’s emissions are set to increase dramatically at a time when some other sectors, such as the power sector, are rapidly reducing theirs. This trajectory underscores the need for urgent action by both policymakers and the aviation industry to address these rising emissions and support global climate goals.
While aircraft have become more energy efficient, reducing emissions per passenger per kilometre flown, these efficiency gains pale compared to the surge in demand for air travel. Without robust intervention, aviation’s share of emissions will grow disproportionately, threatening our ability to tackle the climate crisis.
The aviation industry has long benefited from an inequitable regulatory environment, with minimal carbon pricing and taxation compared to other sectors, not least rail travel, whatever the airline industry may wish to pretend. This preferential treatment is unjustified, especially given the stark disparities in responsibility: just 1% of frequent flyers are responsible for 50% of aviation’s emissions, highlighting the sector’s exclusivity as a privilege for the few.
Legacy carriers should remember that the EU’s carbon market imposes a fee on less than 10% of the climate impact of their flights. Worse still, because these airlines mainly operate routes outside the EU, the price they pay compared to their operations’ total climate effects is even lower, since neither flights with destinations outside the European Economic Area (EEA) nor non-CO2 aviation effects (typically stronger on long-haul flights) are priced under the EU ETS.
It was also quite ironic to hear the airline industry saying loud and clear that any trial to develop regional measures more ambitious than CORSIA would conflict with the EU’s commitment under the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) to develop global solutions.
Global problems ideally require global solutions. But in the absence of a robust global approach, it is up to regions and countries that are willing and able to help navigate the world towards a more sustainable future. The EU has amply demonstrated its efforts to build global answers to international aviation’s environmental impact over the last three decades, despite the many obstacles. This commitment should be upheld.
The European Commission has already clearly highlighted the inadequacies of CORSIA, which has fallen short of delivering tangible emissions reductions. Instead, it serves more as a shaky carbon offsetting mechanism than a robust transformative solution for the sector. This is particularly critical for the EU because EU flights to other parts of the world account for 61% of its aviation sector’s climate impact.
It is, therefore, only fair for the EU to consider addressing these emissions also within the EU ETS, which will be essential to align the aviation sector with the Paris Agreement goals, especially since CORSIA is neither doing it nor planning on doing it for now. Applying the EU ETS on top of CORSIA to all flights departing from the EEA – as long as CORSIA fails to fulfil the goals of the Paris Agreement – is fully in line with international efforts to enhance global cooperation to address aviation emissions, and it will foster further efforts in strengthening international responses. The EU must now give way to decisive action, mirroring its recent bold, yet needed moves with the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM).
Buckle up and knuckle down
Acknowledging the challenges faced by communities dependent on aviation for economic or logistical reasons, the transition to sustainable aviation must include targeted support. Workers and regions reliant on tourism or isolated by geography should receive assistance to diversify their economies and promote sustainable tourism alternatives. These measures should become focal points for the EU’s strategy, ensuring no one is left behind as the sector adapts to climate realities.
The cost of inaction far outweighs the cost of decisive action. Governments must champion fairness by holding aviation to the same standards as other sectors, both within and beyond its borders. Only through bold and equitable policies can the aviation sector contribute meaningfully to global climate goals. And spoiler alert: simplistic claims that offsetting schemes like CORSIA or sustainable CDR will be cheap and abundant in the future cannot in any way replace the need for deep and sustained cuts in emissions and non-CO2 impacts of the aviation sector.
