Decision to Apply Climate Policies to Aviation Emissions

During my search I discovered an interesting article related to emission polices for the International Civil Aviation Organizations.  The ethical dilemma in this article is to determine if more emission control policies should transition to the emerging aviation market.  As CO2 emissions from the Aviation industry are expected to grow, the current emission polices are inadequate for sustainable climate change.

Worldwide Greenhouse gases (GHG) from aviation industries have increased by a factor of 6.8 percent between 1960 and 2018 (Lee et al., 2020).  Recent studies reveal approximately 3.5% of CO2 emission produced by the aviation sector contribute to global warming (Lee et al., 2020). This data was taken from the height of the Covid-19 epidemic since air transport was significantly affected, however, GHG from associated emission is currently rebounding.

The International Civil Aviation Organization and the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme are determining if current, and alternative climate policies should be implemented to the aviation sector.  There are currently ongoing legal disputes between emissions controls and the economic impact of carbon emissions. It is still unclear how international and local government agencies will transition existing climate polices to the aviation sector.  The ethical approach is to apply all existing polices from the industrial industries to the aviation sectors, however, large air transport companies fear the economic impact to an already frail community.

References:

Stefan Gössling & Chris Lyle (2021) Transition policies for climatically sustainable aviation, Transport Reviews, 41:5, 643-658, DOI: 10.1080/01441647.2021.1938284

Full article: Transition policies for climatically sustainable aviation (tandfonline.com)