How big is aviations contribution to climate change?
Direct emissions from aviation account for about 3% of the total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the European Union (EU). The large majority of these emissions comes from international flights – flights between two member states or between a member state and a non-EU country. This figure does not include indirect warming effects, such as those from nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions, contrails and cirrus cloud effects. The overall impact is therefore higher. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has estimated that aviation’s total impact is about two to four times higher than the effect of its past CO2 emissions alone. Recent EU research results indicate that this ratio may be somewhat smaller (around two times). None of these estimates take into account the uncertain but potentially very significant effects of cirrus clouds.
