News | Thursday, 4th November 2021

COP26: Aviation contributes 4% to global warming and is set to increase if pre-COVID growth resumes, study suggests

Experts warn the sector’s emissions must be cut by 2.5% per year to prevent the increase

Representatives from Manchester Met are attending COP26 to help accelerate action to tackle climate change. We'll be sharing our insights and research that is making a difference over the duration of the conference.

Aviation is responsible for more global warming than its carbon footprint alone, according to new research.

At present, the sector’s contribution to human-induced global warming is 4%, but a new study involving researchers from Manchester Metropolitan University calculates that this is set to increase should growth in the sector continue at the same rate as before the COVID-19 pandemic.

The research, published in Environmental Research Letters, suggests aviation could consume up to one-sixth of the remaining temperature budget required to limit warming to 1.5˚C by 2050, unless year on year cuts are made.

David Lee, Professor of Atmospheric Science at Manchester Metropolitan, said: “The aviation industry is widely recognised as a sector which is challenging to decarbonise.

“What our research aims to do is inform the discussion about the sector’s share of future warming – and it’s clear that if the industry aims to return to normal following the disruption of the pandemic, there is little chance it will meet any sort of climate target.”

Researchers behind the study, led by the University of Oxford and involving the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and NERC’s National Centre for Earth Observation (NCEO), say there is a way to “freeze” the temperature increase from the sector and this involves cutting the CO2 emissions produced by aviation by about 2.5% each year.

Strategies for cutting emissions include more efficient air traffic control, minimising holding patterns in airports and a ban on fuel tinkering, which sees aircrafts carry more fuel than they need to in order to save costs of refuelling at the destination.

Researchers also say that ensuring a 90% mix of low carbon sustainable fuels by 2050 would achieve a similar outcome, with no further temperature increase from the sector. But this relies on a sustainable production chain of low-carbon fuels that does not yet exist.

The study outlines some of the long-term solutions to tackling the warming effect of flying, including moving to alternative fuels and strategies to cutting emissions.

To do this, researchers developed a simple technique for quantifying the temperature contribution of historical aviation emissions, including both CO2 and non-CO2 impacts.

This enabled them to predict future warming due to aviation based on a range of possible solutions to the climate crisis.

Proffesor Myles Allen Co-author of the study from the University of Oxford said: “Any growth in aviation emissions has a disproportionate impact, causing lots of warming.

“But any decline also has a disproportionate impact in the other direction. So the good news is that we don’t actually need to all stop flying immediately to stop aviation from causing further global warming – but we do clearly need a fundamental change in direction now, and radical innovation in the future.”