IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcli/v12y2022i10d10.1038_s41558-022-01485-4.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Cost and emissions pathways towards net-zero climate impacts in aviation

Author

Listed:
  • Lynnette Dray

    (University College London)

  • Andreas W. Schäfer

    (University College London)

  • Carla Grobler

    (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

  • Christoph Falter

    (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

  • Florian Allroggen

    (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

  • Marc E. J. Stettler

    (Imperial College London)

  • Steven R. H. Barrett

    (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

Abstract

Aviation emissions are not on a trajectory consistent with Paris Climate Agreement goals. We evaluate the extent to which fuel pathways—synthetic fuels from biomass, synthetic fuels from green hydrogen and atmospheric CO2, and the direct use of green liquid hydrogen—could lead aviation towards net-zero climate impacts. Together with continued efficiency gains and contrail avoidance, but without offsets, such an energy transition could reduce lifecycle aviation CO2 emissions by 89–94% compared with year-2019 levels, despite a 2–3-fold growth in demand by 2050. The aviation sector could manage the associated cost increases, with ticket prices rising by no more than 15% compared with a no-intervention baseline leading to demand suppression of less than 14%. These pathways will require discounted investments on the order of US$0.5–2.1 trillion over a 30 yr period. However, our pathways reduce aviation CO2-equivalent emissions by only 46–69%; more action is required to mitigate non-CO2 impacts.

Suggested Citation

  • Lynnette Dray & Andreas W. Schäfer & Carla Grobler & Christoph Falter & Florian Allroggen & Marc E. J. Stettler & Steven R. H. Barrett, 2022. "Cost and emissions pathways towards net-zero climate impacts in aviation," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 12(10), pages 956-962, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcli:v:12:y:2022:i:10:d:10.1038_s41558-022-01485-4
    DOI: 10.1038/s41558-022-01485-4
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-022-01485-4
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41558-022-01485-4?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Katharine Ricke & Laurent Drouet & Ken Caldeira & Massimo Tavoni, 2019. "Author Correction: Country-level social cost of carbon," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 9(7), pages 567-567, July.
    2. Lynnette Dray & Khan Doyme, 2019. "Carbon leakage in aviation policy," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(10), pages 1284-1296, November.
    3. Pindyck, Robert S., 2019. "The social cost of carbon revisited," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 140-160.
    4. Peter H. Howard & Thomas Sterner, 2017. "Few and Not So Far Between: A Meta-analysis of Climate Damage Estimates," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 68(1), pages 197-225, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. In Chang Hwang & Richard S. J. Tol, 2025. "National social cost of carbon: An application of FUND," Papers 2509.03926, arXiv.org.
    2. Richard S.J. Tol, 2021. "Estimates of the social cost of carbon have not changed over time," Working Paper Series 0821, Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School.
    3. Francisco Estrada & Veronica Lupi & W. J. Wouter Botzen & Richard S. J. Tol, 2025. "Urban and non-urban contributions to the social cost of carbon," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 16(1), pages 1-11, December.
    4. Stefano Carattini & Garth Heutel & Givi Melkadze, 2023. "Climate Policy, Financial Frictions, and Transition Risk," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 51, pages 778-794, December.
    5. Jin, Gui & Shi, Xin & Zhang, Lei & Hu, Shougeng, 2020. "Measuring the SCCs of different Chinese regions under future scenarios," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).
    6. Patrick Bigler & Doina Maria Radulescu, 2022. "Environmental, Redistributive and Revenue Effects of Policies Promoting Fuel Efficient and Electric Vehicles," CESifo Working Paper Series 9645, CESifo.
    7. Ghesla, Claus & Grieder, Manuel & Schubert, Renate, 2020. "Nudging the poor and the rich – A field study on the distributional effects of green electricity defaults," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    8. Tol, Richard S.J., 2019. "A social cost of carbon for (almost) every country," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 555-566.
    9. Sihvonen, Matti & Pihlainen, Sampo & Lai, Tin-Yu & Salo, Tapio & Hyytiäinen, Kari, 2021. "Crop production, water pollution, or climate change mitigation—Which drives socially optimal fertilization management most?," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 186(C).
    10. Funke, Franziska & Mattauch, Linus & van den Bijgaart, Inge & Godfray, Charles & Hepburn, Cameron & Klenert, David & Springmann, Marco & Treich, Nicholas, 2021. "Is Meat Too Cheap? Towards Optimal Meat Taxation," INET Oxford Working Papers 2021-08, Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford.
    11. Lurdes Jesus Ferreira & Luís Pereira Dias & Jieling Liu, 2022. "Adopting Carbon Pricing Tools at the Local Level: A City Case Study in Portugal," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(3), pages 1-20, February.
    12. Zaiter, Issa & Ramadan, Mohamad & Bouabid, Ali & El-Fadel, Mutasem & Mezher, Toufic, 2023. "Potential utilization of hydrogen in the UAE's industrial sector," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 280(C).
    13. Giudice, Renzo & Börner, Jan, 2021. "Benefits and costs of incentive-based forest conservation in the Peruvian Amazon," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    14. Roy, Dibyendu & Samanta, Samiran & Ghosh, Sudip, 2020. "Performance assessment of a biomass fuelled advanced hybrid power generation system," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 639-661.
    15. Ramiro de Ávila Peres, 2024. "Social Discounting and the Tragedy of the Horizon: from the Stern-Nordhaus debate to target-consistent prices," Working Papers Series 593, Central Bank of Brazil, Research Department.
    16. Ottmar Edenhofer & Max Franks & Matthias Kalkuhl, 2021. "Pigou in the 21st Century: a tribute on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the publication of The Economics of Welfare," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 28(5), pages 1090-1121, October.
    17. Moritz A. Drupp & Frikk Nesje & Robert C. Schmidt & Robert Christian Schmidt, 2022. "Pricing Carbon," CESifo Working Paper Series 9608, CESifo.
    18. David Anthoff & Richard S. J. Tol, 2022. "Testing the Dismal Theorem," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 9(5), pages 885-920.
    19. Cole, Wesley & Antonysamy, Adithya & Brown, Patrick & Sergi, Brian & Mai, Trieu & Denholm, Paul, 2023. "How much might it cost to decarbonize the power sector? It depends on the metric," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 276(C).
    20. Sulikova, Simona & van den Bijgaart, Inge & Klenert, David & Mattauch, Linus, 2020. "Optimal fuel taxation with suboptimal health choices," Working Papers in Economics 794, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcli:v:12:y:2022:i:10:d:10.1038_s41558-022-01485-4. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.