Aviation’s impact on climate change can’t be solved by greener planes or the European Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS)

Small increases in the efficiency of planes will be overwhelmed by an unrestrained growth in flights. The Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution found that the industry’s targets are ‘clearly aspirations rather than projections’(9). There are some basic technological restraints that make major improvements impossible to imagine. However, if the Government caps the total number of flights at current levels, these efficiency gains could have a positive impact. The Government says that it believes the European Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) is the best way to tackle aviation’s climate change impacts. Yet research shows that aviation’s inclusion in the EU ETS will do next to nothing to reduce aviation’s emissions. Even in the toughest ETS scenario envisaged, by 2020 emissions would grow by 83% rather than 86% in a business-as-usual situation.

(9)Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, 29th November 2002. The Environmental Effects of Civil Aircraft in Flight. Special Repor$1  
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