The aviation industry’s plans for growth are at odds with Europe’s climate goals, according to a report by activist group Transport & Environment (T&E). Boeing and Airbus predict that the number of passenger flights will roughly double between 2019 and 2050, while the global fleet of widebody cargo aircraft is expected to reach 3,900 by the early 2040s. Despite EU law stipulating that 42% of flights should be powered by sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), the number of fossil-fuelled flights is expected to remain similar to today.
Jo Dardenne, aviation director at T&E, said, “The numbers leave you speechless… the aviation industry’s plans for growth are completely irreconcilable with Europe’s climate goals and the scale of the climate crisis.”
Producing enough bio-based fuel for aircraft operating within the UK would require more than half of the nation’s crop-land, while generating sufficient green hydrogen for synthetic fuels would need more than three times the UK’s 2020 wind and solar energy output.
Aviation’s clash with EU climate targets
Passenger and cargo aviation is likely to take a large share of synthetic and bio-based fuels, leaving little for other transport modes.
The provenance of SAF is also uncertain, with four in every five litres being derived from questionable feedstocks, according to T&E. This has led to perverse incentives, such as clearing carbon-sink forests in Malaysia for palm oil plantations and changing fried chicken recipes in South Korea to generate more ‘used cooking oil’ for biofuel production. Dardenne emphasized that a paradigm shift and real climate leadership are needed to address the problem, or Europe’s planes will consume everyone else’s resources.
The credibility of the aviation sector is on the line as it faces the challenge of reconciling growth with climate goals.
