Domestic aviation is included in New Zealand's Emissions Trading Scheme (NZETS) and carbon budgets. International aviation emissions are measured but are not included in national targets or regulations.
Last November, at COP26 in Glasgow, New Zealand joined the International Aviation Climate Ambition Coalition and committed to preparing up-to-date state action plans detailing ambitious and concrete national action to reduce aviation emissions and submitting these plans to ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organisation) well in advance of the 41st ICAO assembly.
This assembly of the UN's International Civil Aviation Organisation will take place in September.
How to cut aviation emissions
In a new report, economist Paul Callister and I look at all the options. What would "ambitious and concrete action" to reduce aviation emissions look like for New Zealand?
Change is in the air. There are new proposals for net zero aviation by 2050 from the EU, the UK, the International Air Transport Association, the International Energy Association, and Air New Zealand.
In New Zealand, a two-seater electric plane with a 130km range crossed the Cook Strait for the first time in November last year. Unfortunately, its larger cousins won't be here soon enough or in large enough numbers to affect emissions overall.
Despite the media attention on electric and hydrogen aircraft, they do not feature strongly in New Zealand's plans. Larger electric aircraft don't exist yet and we need to act sooner than they will become available.
Better fuel technology
Offsetting, by planting trees for example, is a temporary fix. It transfers risk to the next generation and does not get at the root of the problem, which is burning fossil fuels. Most pathways do not rely on much offsetting.
For the next few decades, emissions will be determined by traffic volumes, efficiency and sustainable aviation fuel.
Efficiency can be encouraged by using the most fuel-efficient planes (and possibly banning the others), filling them as much as possible, flying efficiently and increasing the price of fuel through a carbon charge or a sustainable fuel mandate, or both.
Sustainable aviation fuel is the main technological solution on the table. By 2035, New Zealand could conceivably build two $520 million wood-based biofuel plants, producing 57 million litres a year each, and one 100MW e-fuel plant producing 40 million litres a year. Together they would provide 8 per cent of New Zealand's jet fuel at 2019 levels of demand.
However, neither of these technologies are yet in commercial use; the first demonstration plants are only now under construction. The uncertainties are large.
Traffic volumes are affected by price and regulation. Industry projections of very high growth (up to 120 per cent by 2050) are not compatible with the Paris Agreement.
The present free ride for international aviation (no GST, no carbon charge, no fuel tax) is an obstacle. But now that the EU is considering a tax on jet fuel, this could change.
Curbing frequent flying
Flying less is the main remaining tool in the toolkit. Air travel is strikingly unevenly distributed. In Europe, 90 per cent of households have aviation emissions of 0.1 tonnes of CO₂ per person per year (equivalent to one Auckland–Sydney return trip every four years); 9 per cent emit 0.8 tonnes (Auckland–LA every two years); and the top 1 per cent, 22.6 tonnes (Auckland–London six times a year).
So less frequent flying, especially by the hyper-mobile, has to be part of the solution. Non-flyers cannot reduce their aviation emissions. The Jump campaign asks people to limit flights to one 1500km return flight every three years, a level derived from a study of urban lifestyles compatible with 1.5C.
The natural experiment of the Covid pandemic prompts the question of how essential such frequent flying is to wellbeing.
Stats New Zealand monitors wellbeing following international guidelines. While 81 per cent of the population reported high overall life satisfaction in 2018, this rose to 86 per cent in 2021. People adopted substitutes for international travel, including telecommunications, domestic tourism and local tourism.
The economy also grew, up 3.4 per cent from 2019 to 2021.
However, there are confounding factors, namely the government stimulus, social solidarity and knowledge of the health risks of travel.
A recent UK study considers the role of curbing excess energy consumption in a fair transition. After comparing 10 possible definitions of "excess", they conclude that excess is whatever people can agree it is, based on ideas of "fairness" and "just" levels of consumption that can be rationalised, defended and justified to others. Any policies that are used to target excess consumption and excessive consumers must be similarly reasonable and justifiable, based on the principles of deliberative democracy and exploring options, impacts and fairness with the public.
Two key events of the past decade reinforce the urgency of the situation. The first is the proven ability of the New Zealand aviation industry to increase emissions at a staggering rate when unregulated, as observed from 2014 to 2019. The second is Covid. Ensuring that aviation emissions remain permanently well below 2019 levels will make the longer-term task significantly easier.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
