Aviation and Increasing CO2 Emissions

Study on U.S. Airlines and Global Warming Shows That Aviation Emissions Are Continuing to Climb

By Miki Barnes, LCSW
November 24, 2014

The excerpt below is from a press release entitled Study: Airline Fuel Efficiency Grounded as Profits Soar: Huge Efficiency Gap Shows EPA Must Cut Aircraft Carbon Pollution. It was issued by the Center for Biological Diversity on 11/19/14 and can be accessed in full at the Center for Biological Diversity website . The study referred to, which was published by the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT), is available at the ICCT website.

“U.S. airlines posted a 5.7 percent profit margin in the first three quarters of this year. Meanwhile industry pollution is increasing: Aviation now accounts for about 11 percent of carbon dioxide emissions from the U.S. transportation sector, and those emissions are rising 3 percent to 5 percent every year. ‘Airlines are banking sizeable profits even as they simply ignore fuel efficiency and emit more carbon pollution,’ said Vera Pardee of the Center for Biological Diversity. ‘This report's disturbing findings leave the EPA no choice but to finally confront airplanes' escalating emissions. Until we get sensible federal regulations, we'll see more and more planet-warming pollution from this industry.’

If counted as a country, global aviation would have ranked seventh in terms of CO2 emissions in 2011, just after Germany. These already massive CO2 emissions rise every year and are projected to triple by 2050. The EPA announced two months ago that it has started a rulemaking process to determine whether American aircrafts' fast-growing carbon emissions endanger public health and welfare. The result of that process is a foregone conclusion: they do. The agency expects to issue a proposed finding by late April 2015, along with a notice describing international efforts to set aircraft carbon emission standards by 2016. Those efforts have stalled for decades.

The EPA action came one month after the Center for Biological Diversity and Friends of the Earth, which is represented by Earthjustice, filed a notice of intent to sue the agency for failing to reduce aircraft greenhouse gas pollution.”