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Costs of mitigating CO2 emissions from passenger aircraft

Schäfer, AW; Evans, AD; Reynolds, TG; Dray, L; (2015) Costs of mitigating CO2 emissions from passenger aircraft. Nature Climate Change , 6 (4) pp. 412-417. 10.1038/nclimate2865. Green open access

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Abstract

In response to strong growth in air transportation CO2 emissions, governments and industry began to explore and implement mitigation measures and targets in the early 2000s. However, in the absence of rigorous analyses assessing the costs for mitigating CO2 emissions, these policies could be economically wasteful. Here we identify the cost-effectiveness of CO2 emission reductions from narrow-body aircraft, the workhorse of passenger air transportation. We find that in the US, a combination of fuel burn reduction strategies could reduce the 2012 level of life cycle CO2 emissions per passenger kilometre by around 2% per year to mid-century. These intensity reductions would occur at zero marginal costs for oil prices between US$50–100 per barrel. Even larger reductions are possible, but could impose extra costs and require the adoption of biomass-based synthetic fuels. The extent to which these intensity reductions will translate into absolute emissions reductions will depend on fleet growth.

Type: Article
Title: Costs of mitigating CO2 emissions from passenger aircraft
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1038/nclimate2865
Publisher version: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2865
Language: English
Additional information: Copyright © 2016 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Carbon and energy, Climate-change mitigation, Climate sciences, Environmental sciences
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment > Bartlett School Env, Energy and Resources
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1477564
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