ENVIRONMENTAL ESSAY
Aerlines
Aviation Policy Options for Not
Exceeding the EU +2◦C Threshold
This essay discusses the disjuncture between EU
aviation emissions growth in recent decades and
the EU climate change commitment to not excee-
ding a 2 ◦C rise in global mean surface tempera-
ture above the pre-industrial level (EC, 2007a). We
particularly discuss the roles of the EU Emissions
Trading Scheme (EU ETS) and the Clean Develop-
ment Mechanism (CDM). We also comment on
how the current downturn in air passenger num-
bers in the EU compares to the reduced level of
passenger demand in the EU that would be com-
patible with ‘safe’ climate targets.
by: Dr. Paul Upham, Dr. Alice Bows, Prof. Kevin
Anderson and Mr. John Broderick
Introduction  in total passenger traffic at European airports in 2008 com-
This essay discusses the disjuncture between EU aviation
emissions growth in recent decades and the EU climate change
commitment to not exceeding a 2 °C rise in global mean sur-
face temperature above the pre-industrial level (EC, 2007a).
We particularly discuss the roles of the EU Emissions Trading
Scheme (EU ETS) and the Clean Development Mechanism
(CDM). We also comment on how the current downturn in air
passenger numbers in the EU compares to the reduced level
of passenger demand in the EU that would be compatible with
‘safe’ climate targets.
Our view is that reconciling growth in European aviation
emissions with EU ETS will require that Certified Emissions
Reductions from the CDM (or Emissions Reductions Units
from Joint Implementation) form a substantial proportion of
EU ETS trade. We consider this strategy to be politically dis-
ingenuous and likely to fail to stimulate the necessary domes-
tic technological and systems innovations, not to mention the
behavioural changes, which are needed throughout industrial
economies to avoid ‘dangerous climate change’. We argue
that there should be a more honest debate of the trade-offs
necessary to meet the 2°C commitment. Specifically, we take
the view that emissions reductions should occur wholly or
primarily within the EU; that there should be an accelerated
research, development and deployment programmes for avia-
tion; that supplementary instruments are necessary to address
the non-CO2 impacts of aviation emissions; and that for the
next several decades, aviation growth rates will need to reduce
substantially. This said, the level of demand reduction associ-
ated with the current economic down-turn (a 0.2% reduction
pared with 2007) (ACI, 2009), is greater than that required
to avoid +2 °C climate warming in our scenario modelling
(see below). The downturn illustrates the type of unmanaged
economic contraction that climate policy analysts are trying
to avoid by arguing for early action towards smooth emis-
sions contraction profiles. The longer these calls are ignored,
however, the more likely are radical economic and climate
discontinuities in coming decades, with associated adverse
social consequences.
 
Climate Science and Policy Context
The EC Directive that includes aviation within EU ETS (EC,
2008) is to be welcomed, but its benefits will be largely condi-
tional on the ways in which the wider EU ETS develops, par-
ticularly the level of the cap. Taken as an initial step to build
political consensus and to achieve commercial buy-in, the Di-
rective is likely to prove successful. However, if that success
is not rapidly followed by a tightly contracting EU ETS cap as
described below, the EU will fail to honour its commitment to
not exceeding the +2 °C threshold. In short, the Directive does
not reflect the urgency of the climate problem.
Although the Commission has proposed that the EU pursues
- in the context of international negotiations - the objective
of a 30% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) by
developed countries by 2020 (compared to 1990 levels), it
also sees an expanded role for the CDM in this process (EC,
e-zine edition 43 1
2007a:11). It is not difficult to see why the CDM is viewed taneously retain a stringent climate target and industrial and
by policymakers as critical to EU climate policy. To stand a political support. In other words, with the current weak level
modest chance of not exceeding the +2 °C threshold, the EU of support for meaningful action to reduce carbon emissions
now has a window of less than ten years in which to begin (rhetoric and good intentions aside), trade-out of EU ETS will
substantial, year-on-year reductions in greenhouse gas emis- be critical to the economic, commercial and hence political
sions (Bows et al., 2006a). Avoiding exceedance of +2 °C re- acceptability of the proposed Directive to bring aviation into
quires a maximum global atmospheric CO2 concentration of EU ETS.
450ppmv (parts per million by volume), preferably 400ppmv
CO2. Avoiding a breach of 450ppmv CO2 in turn requires The key question this begs is whether extensive use of Joint
around 3% - 6% annual reductions in total EU CO2 emissions Implementation and CDM will undermine a genuine global
over the period 2012-2030 (Bows et al, 2007). Note that an transition to a low carbon future. This could happen in two
atmospheric concentration of 450ppmv CO2 would not guar- main ways. First, unless trade-out is accompanied by a real
antee that we would avoid overshooting the 2 °C target. To commitment to strong and mandatory fuel efficiency and re-
be sure of not exceeding this level of temperature increase, newable/low carbon energy targets, the pressure for a shift
atmospheric concentrations need to be below current levels to low carbon supply, more efficient technologies and behav-
(Meinshausen, 2006). ioural changes will be limited. Phase 2 of the EU ETS allows
for 13% of total emissions to be met from the CDM, more
The EC +2 °C threshold allows industrialised nations very little than double the 6% reduction in the cap from 2005 emissions.
growth in carbon emissions prior to barely feasible contraction EU Directive 2008/101/EC limits the use of Certified Emis-
rates (Anderson and Bows, 2008). Whilst significant global sions Reductions (CERs, i.e. the tradable emissions credits
aviation growth is possible in this context, it would seem un- generated via CDM projects) to 15% of the emissions liability
likely that citizens would choose to prioritise the sector if theyof each aircraft operator. However, this does not alone restrict
were faced with starker choices, as would be necessary with- the total influx of CERs, as other industries may use their
out the CDM or adequately early action within industrialised maximum CER limit whilst selling on surplus EUAs (EU Al-
nations. Exploring 450ppmv CO2 scenarios for the UK, Bows lowances, the tradable credits allocated by governments under
et al (2006) found it necessary to allocate the contracting car- EU ETS) to airlines.
bon budget to those sectors with the fewest options for change,
particularly aviation. Although they found that both static and A large influx of external credits will likely weaken the carbon
high mobility scenarios are possible, (the latter assuming that price and hence impact of the EU ETS (already, for different
UK individuals travel twice as many passenger kilometres by reasons, the price has fallen to a very low level, currently 8
road and rail euros/tonne).
in 2050, and Second, even
three times assuming that
more passen- most CDM/JI
ger kilome- projects are
tres by air by of high envi-
2050, relative ronmental and
to 2004), both social qual-
scenarios re- ity (which has
quire rapid de- not always
carbonisation been the case
by every other for the CDM),
sector. More- there will be
over, air pas- economic
senger growth multiplier ef-
rates would fects in the
need to fall host countries
from the re- that reduce,
cent UK level and may even
of 7% per an- eliminate, the
num to a maxi- direct equiva-
mum annual Photo 1: A NASA satellite image showing a stream of aircraft contrails between the United Kingdom and lence with EU
average of just France in Europe. Source: NASA Earth Observatory at http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov emissions.
over 2%, and not exceed this. In addition, the aviation indus- That is to say, investments overseas will – hopefully – raise
try would need to improve fuel efficiency above current rates, standards of living. Yet this will also stimulate demand for
significantly increase its load factor and would need to have consumer goods and lifestyles and it is inevitable that these
switched to 50% biofuel by 2050 (ibid: 56). will be fuelled in part by carbon-based energy sources. Devel-
opment benefits could be real but climate policy benefits less
CDM Sleight of Hand? than expected, or even negative (i.e. the volume of CO2 offset
Rather than deal with the domestic political difficulties of could be wholly negated, or worse, via economic multiplier
taking full responsibility for our emissions, difficulties com- effects, even if there is improvement relative to the baseline
pounded through years of ignoring the problem, there is a within a single project). Low carbon technology transfer is
growing likelihood that Commissioners will opt to make sig- certainly desirable, but only if accompanied by similar do-
nificant use of the CDM. This will enable the EU to simul- mestic change, not if used as a substitute for that change.

2

Recommendations
Given a great deal of optimism, it remains politically pos-
sible that EU citizens will, during the next decade, come to
realise that we need to quickly and substantially reduce emis-
sions domestically. Every severe weather event (and coura-
geous politician or innovative business leader) will add to the
chances of this realisation. Currently the aviation industry is
presuming that EU ETS will remain weak (i.e. open to CDM
and with a lax cap) for the foreseeable future. This is not a
safe or sustainable presumption. Our first recommendation
is that the sector is obliged to pursue the technological and
systems options for fuel efficiency in a much more pro-active
way. Of all the technological possibilities, in the long term,
fuel-switching is the most important, as even modest growth
(of over 2%) will outstrip efficiencies. In the short term, re-
duced passenger growth, probably best incentivised by a
rise in ticket prices, is necessary to avoid over-consumption
of the contracting carbon budget. Of course, before any of
this can happen, the industry (including its customers)
needs to fully appreciate the problem that climate
change poses. We suspect that this
requires a change in wider
social attitudes. The problem is that this
looks likely to come too late: instead
of a managed contraction
to stable, lower emitting industries,
we risk having to either adopt draconian
measures for emissions reductions, or, more l i k e -
ly, having to adapt to substantially changing coastlines and
weather patterns, with lower consumer surpluses available for
travel and other productive and enjoyable economic activity.
We have shown elsewhere (e.g. Bows et al, 2008) that al-
though emissions from air travel are modest relative to those
of other sectors (though higher in the UK), passenger growth
rates in the order of 3% per year, even assuming optimis-
tic annual fuel efficiency increases, will quickly compound
to consume a large fraction of the necessary UK or EU car-
bon budgets. Moreover this ignores the additional, non-CO2
warming caused by aviation emissions. The EU ETS is not
going to solve this without a tight cap, by which we mean
substantially tighter than at present. Considering the implica-
tions for carbon prices and hence air ticket prices of a tighter
cap, Bows and Anderson (2008) show that even an order of
magnitude increase in EU ETS carbon prices (i.e. more than
ten times higher than now) would add relatively little to air
ticket prices.
Given the shortcomings of EU ETS as currently instituted,
how do we reduce demand and encourage a shift to lower
GHG fuel for aviation? An explicit process of accelerated
research, development and deployment (RD&D) in the avia-
tion sector should be strongly encouraged, as the EU ETS in
its current form, will not provide the necessary price incen-
tive. The means by which RD&D is incentivised could, for
example, consist of en-route emissions charges for CO2 and
NOx (but presumably requiring renegotiation of the Chicago
Convention if extended beyond the EU), with revenue hy-
pothecated to a fund to which the industry may bid for re-
search and demonstration projects. Secondly, it may be that
EU policy should prioritise biofuel supply for aviation use,
given that alternatives (notably renewable electricity) are
more readily available for surface transport and that it is not
at all a straightforward matter to ensure that biofuel is pro-
duced in an environmentally and socially benign manner, and
this will restrict the available supply (e.g. Upham et al, 2008).
Thirdly, and least palatably for the sector, in the absence of
personal carbon quotas or a tight EU ETS cap, we will need to
raise ticket prices through some other means, to suppress ‘ex-
cess’ demand. The simplest, environmentally-related way of
aligning this with environmental objectives is via emissions
charges, given that policy-makers seem minded to allow an
internationally open EU ETS (note that this would not mat-
ter if we had a globally closed emissions trading system that
itself had a tight cap). As mentioned, the revenues from this
could be hypothecated back to the industry to provide capital
for RD&D.
Conclusions
In this short essay we have argued that EU ETS, as it is cur-
rently developing, will not adequately manage the high levels
of growth in aviation emissions. There are indications that EU
ETS will become an increasingly open system, diluting
an already weak cap that does not remotely
re- flect the requirements of the
EU’s own and repeated commit-
ment to not exceeding the +2 °C
threshold. We have argued
that, in relation to avia-
tion, EU ETS should be supple-
mented by an acceler- ated RD&D programme,
funded from emissions charges, to assist long term
change. The uncomfortable message, however, is that almost
regardless of future low-carbon technologies and fuel, pas-
senger growth levels also need to be reduced to a maximum
of 2% p.a. (in the UK or EU) if we are to stand any chance of
meeting the +2 °C threshold. It may be some consolation that
this is substantially higher than the slightly negative growth
(-0.2%) in the EU that is now a consequence of a (presumably
temporary) economic downturn.
About the Authors
The authors are researchers with aviation interests at Tyndall
Centre Manchester, the University of Manchester. Collective-
ly they have affiliations to Manchester Business School; the
University of Manchester’s Sustainable Consumption Institute
and School of Mechanical Aerospace and Civil Engineering;
and the UK’s Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research.
Dr Paul Upham is corresponding authour for this essay. He
is a Research Fellow in the Tyndall Centre Manchester and
Manchester Business School. He has a research background
3
 Aerlines
in sustainability indication and in public/stakeholder percep-
tions of low carbon energy sources. To contact Paul Upham:
p.upham@manchester.ac.uk

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Photo and illustration credits: Page1: PlaneStupid.at www.

planestupid.com, page 3: Wikimedia/Commons+Du Saar
Photography © 2009 (www.dusaar.nl) and Airbus (tree-plane)
and page 4: Wikimedia/Commons.

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