Factors determining airlines' costs for climate protecting market-based measures

Abstract

This paper investigates the factors influencing airline’s costs for climate protecting market-based measures. It is based on selected results of the interdisciplinary research project AviClim (Including Aviation in International Protocols for Climate Protection). AviClim has investigated how to limit aviation’s full climate impact best from an environmental and economic point of view. In this research project, both long-lived CO2 and short-lived non-CO2 effects of aviation have been addressed simultaneously and climate protecting scenarios for aviation in the timeframe 2010-2030 have been developed. On this basis, the factors determining aviation’s costs for climate protecting measures have been analysed. Results indicate that the choice of the market-based measure, it’s regional scope, the metric chosen for the translation of the non-CO2 impacts into equivalent CO2 and the prices for equivalent CO2 are important factors for airline’s costs. An analysis for single flights reveals remarkable differences in specific emissions (tons CO2 equivalent/flight kilometre). An investigation for groups of airlines differentiated by business model and country of origin indicates that the world regions served by the airlines, the business model, the length and the emission characteristics of the flights are further important factors for the costs of the regulating measure.