Fact Sheet: Climate Change

Industry Goals

IATA’s goals are 

• An average improvement in fuel efficiency of 1.5% per year to 2020
• A cap on net aviation CO2 emissions from 2020: carbon-neutral growth
• Reduce net CO2 emissions by 50% by 2050 compared to 2005

Air Transport’s Climate ChangeTrack Record

Air transport accounts for 2% of global manmade CO2 emissions

• Air transport’s contribution has not increased in the past 20 years and is not expected to increase beyond 3% by 2050 (IPCC)
• Total climate change impact (including radiative forcing from other greenhouse gases) is 3% and is not expected to increase beyond 5% by 2050 (IPCC)
• Air transport has reduced its fuel use and CO2 emissions per passenger kilometer by well over 70% compared to 1960s. 
• Although traffic increased by as much as 5.3%, total emissions for 2011 increased by only 3.3% to 669 million tonnes CO2 (compared with 649 million tonnes in 2010)
• Emissions growth of 3.3% in 2011 is the result of 
• Increase of 5.3% due to capacity increase (34 million tonnes)
• Annual percentage efficiency improvement of 2.0%

Carbon-Neutral Growth (CNG) 2020

• Carbon-neutral growth (CNG) means that aviation’s net CO2 emissions will not increase beyond 2020 levels even as demand for air transport continues to grow
• CNG2020 is contingent upon action by other stakeholders:
• The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) needs to adopt a CO2 emission standard for new aircraft types
• Governments and fuel companies need to support and scale up the production of sustainable biofuels for aviation
• Governments and Air Navigation Service Providers need to improve air traffic management, and live up to their commitments to deliver the Single European Sky in Europe and NextGen in the United States

Four Pillar Strategy to Address Climate Change

1. Technology

• Short-term: enhancements and modifications to existing in-service fleet
• Medium-term: accelerate fleet renewal, introduce latest technologies, including drop-in biofuels
• Long-term: radical new technologies and designs
• IATA Technology Roadmap identifies technologies that could reduce fuel burn per aircraft of up to 30%

2. Operations

• Improved operations can save fuel and CO2  by up to 6% per year (IPCC)
• IATA helps fuel conservation by compiling best practices, publishing guidance, visiting airlines and training (via Green Teams)
• IATA will extend fuel conservation programs and promote airline environmental management systems

3. Infrastructure 

• Governments and infrastructure providers could eliminate up to 12% of CO2 emissions by addressing airport and airspace inefficiencies (IPCC)
• Some 4% of this has already been achieved since 1999 (CANSO)
• Single European Sky, US Next Gen Air Transport System and flexible airspace access would contribute to these savings

4. Economic measures

• To the extent that the industry’s climate change objectives may not be achieved through the first three pillars alone, a cost-effective market-based measure is needed to bridge the gap
• Considering the international nature of aviation, a global approach to aviation emissions must however be preferred over a patchwork of individual and uncoordinated policies:
• A market-based measure should be cost-effective and administratively simple
• A patchwork of measures may be duplicative. Airlines should only be held accountable once for their emissions
• A global mechanism is needed to prevent market distortions and carbon leakage

Updated: December 2012