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Europe’s aviation industry plans to double its passenger traffic by 2050 and will deplete its carbon budget as early as 2026, a new study by green group T&E (Transport & Environment) shows. Policy makers must act rapidly to address airport growth, frequent flying and under-taxation of the sector.
Passenger air traffic from EU airports will more than double in 2050 compared to 2019, if projections by aircraft manufacturers Airbus and Boeing materialise. New analysis by T&E shows that aircraft will burn 59% more fuel [1] in 2050 than in 2019, despite improvements in efficiency. Concretely, in 2050, planes taking off from EU airports will still burn 21.1 Mt of fossil kerosene, a yearly extraction of 1.9 billion barrels of crude oil [2].
Increasingly, planes will use alternatives to fossil kerosene called sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs). But due to exponential growth, in 2049, the sector could be burning as much fossil kerosene as it did in 2023, even when using 42% of SAF, as required by the EU's law on green fuels. Airlines have two main alternatives to kerosene: biofuels, which are often unsustainable, and e-fuels, made from renewable electricity. T&E’s new study finds that, by 2050, European aviation could be using 24.2 Mt of bio-kerosene. But, 4 out of every 5 litres of this could derive from feedstocks that are not truly sustainable.
Whilst e-fuels are much more sustainable and scalable than biofuels, they won’t be able to keep up with this rapidly growing sector. The EU’s SAF law (called Refuel Aviation) requires a 35% blend of e-fuels by 2050. If industry growth projections materials this would translate into 24.2 Mt of e-kerosene. But as e-fuels require a lot of energy to produce, the energy needs for Europe’s aviation industry would be higher than Germany’s total electricity demand in 2023 (506 TWh).
Whilst some industry actors argue that SAFs are unavailable to buy and this is limiting emissions reduction in the sector, T&E points out that, at this level of growth, the benefits of SAF will be cancelled out. SAFs are only a viable solution without exponentially growing levels of traffic.
Under the Airbus and Boeing growth scenarios, by 2049, European aviation emissions will only be 3% lower than in 2019 [3]. And in 2050, when the EU pledged to have reached net zero GHG emissions, the sector will still emit 79 million tonnes of CO2. At this rate, Europe’s aviation sector will deplete its carbon budget by 2026, T&E finds.
Jo Dardenne, aviation director at T&E: “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. In a year, the sector will have exceeded its carbon allowance. A paradigm shift and real climate leadership are needed now to address the problem, or Europe’s planes will be eating up everyone else's resources. The credibility of the sector is on the line.”
The European Commission has set out a plan to reduce its emissions by 90% by 2040 compared to 1990. All sectors, including aviation, will need to address their climate impact. Based on the European Commission’s impact assessment, T&E finds an average yearly growth of 1.4% between 2023 and 2050 - 60% lower than the Airbus and Boeing growth projections. Even this lower growth projection will result in a 46% emissions increase by 2040 compared to 1990, nowhere close enough to achieve net zero. Aviation will get a free pass whilst other sectors have to decarbonise, T&E warns.
For now, the European Commission has no concrete plans to limit the aviation sector’s growth in its 2040 target. If no policies to address growth are introduced, Europe’s aviation emissions will not decrease fast enough. T&E urges the European Commission to present proposals to put an end to airport infrastructure growth in Europe, to keep corporate travel at 50% of 2019 levels, to address frequent flying and to reverse the under-taxation of the sector. Without such measures, if Airbus and Boeing's forecasts materialise, T&E estimates that, at European level, an additional 960 million tonnes of CO2 could be emitted between 2023 and 2050 compared with the European Commission's modelling.
“We applaud the European Commission’s world-beating 90% emissions reduction target. But such a target is completely meaningless without concrete policies to reduce emissions from aviation. The sector has been given countless free passes in its history - now it is time to change course. The EU needs to come up with a plan to address the tonnes and tonnes of aviation emissions released in the atmosphere every year,” Jo Dardenne concludes.
[1] This includes fossil kerosene, biofuels (many of which are not truly sustainable), and synthetic fuels (or e-kerosene).
[2] Based on EU refineries’ average yield of 9% in 2022.
[3] Assuming all biofuels deliver actual climate benefits.
