Starting January 1, 2012, European nations will implement an EC directive to incorporate international and domestic aviation emissions into the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). The directive, which will impose a modest price on aviation growth (currently just over US$14.3/tonne CO2), is under legal challenge by US carriers and opposed by nations such as the US, Russia, India, and Brazil, and has sparked debate about what “equivalent measures” other countries can adopt that would exempt their carriers from the system. Simultaneously, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) is working to develop a global framework to control GHG emissions from aircraft for consideration at its 38th General Assembly in 2013. This includes a proposal for a global framework for market-based measures and a CO2 emission standard for new aircraft. The latter has been a major focus for the ICCT since 2009.
Overview of the climate challenge for aviation, introduction to concepts and policy developments, summary of key design criteria.
Case study demonstrates how metrics that include vehicle and/or fuel weight could relax incentives for manufacturers to devote technological improvements to reducing fuel consumption rather than boosting performance.
Surveys the range of test cycles used to evaluate the efficiency of vehicles—including passenger cars and trucks, motorcycles, heavy-duty trucks and buses, and marine vessels—in order to inform ICAO discussion of a CO2 certification procedure.
Discusses initial ICCT work on sales‐weighted historical trends in new aircraft design attributes and their influence on aircraft efficiency, using design range as a first area of inquiry.
Estimates the sales and activity-weighted efficiency of new jet aircraft from 1960 to 2008 to argue that fuel price has been an inconsistent driver of aircraft efficiency, and that an aircraft CO2 standard is most likely to reduce emissions if it applies to all newly built aircraft from current production lines, not just to new designs.
Identifies at least two carbon intensity metrics (g CO2/ATK for dedicated cargo planes and g CO2/ASK for dedicated passenger aircraft) suitable for use in establishing a CO2 standard for new commercial aircraft.
