Climate impacts from international aviation and shipping; State-of-the-art on climate impacts, allocation and mitigation policies

Abstract

The international aviation and shipping sectors contribute significantly to climatic change and air pollution. Until now, however, Parties to the United Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) have not been able to agree on a methodology to assign responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions from these sectors. In addition, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the International Maritime Organization (IMO) have not been able to agree on any action to ensure effective implementation of mitigation policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from international aviation and shipping. However, both ICAO and IMO are investigating several policy options. These options may have implications for monitoring and reporting requirements as well as for the allocation of responsibility for international climate emissions from both sectors. It is for this reason that the present report focuses broadly on all these issues. Against this background, the Netherlands Research Programme on Climate Change (NRP-CC) asked CE Delft and its partners to provide an assessment of the latest policy developments and scientific findings on the following issues:

• Development of greenhouse gas emissions from international aviation and shipping.
• Impacts on climate; for aviation an update of scientific findings since the 1999 IPCC Special Report on Aviation and the Global Atmosphere.
• Allocation options.
• Development of mitigation policies at global and EU levels for aviation and shipping.
• Data availability and data requirements.

The primary aim of this report is to inform representatives of Ministries of Transport and Environment of the EU-25 and other stakeholders on the latest scientific findings and policy developments with regard to the aforementioned issues. This may facilitate further policy discussions in the UNFCCC, within ICAO, IMO and the EU with respect to monitoring and allocation of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from international aviation and shipping and possible policies to mitigate those emissions.