Towards more sustainability? – The development of aviation emissions from Germany between 1995 and 2016

Abstract

Aviation is considered to be one of the major contributors to climate change. While aviation’s emissions currently account only for about 2.0% to 2.5% of total anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions and about 12% of carbon dioxide emissions from transportation, its share is expected to grow further due to long-term demand growth. Aviation is currently almost fully dependent on petroleum-based fuels and technological improvements are unable to offset demand growth. We use activity data from the German air transport statistics and an emissions calculation tool based on emissions profiles generated with EUROCONTROL’s Base of Aircraft Data (BADA) and commercial flight performance tool PIANO-X in order to analyze the development of carbon dioxide emissions from flights departing at German airports in a time series from 1995 to 2016. For the calculation of emissions and subsequent indicators, actual payload data is being used; hence it is possible to derive not only indicators on the development of absolute emissions, but also on specific transport-performance related developments. We find that Germany’s aviation emissions have increased by more than 60% from 1995 to 2016 (16.9 Mt to 27.3 Mt CO2). However, specific emissions per ton kilometer have declined by almost 30% in the same timeframe. We find that the improvement in specific fuel consumption in the long run is about 1.6% annually, which is less than the current “aspirational goal” of 2% per year agreed upon at ICAO for global aviation.