Forecasts of CO2 from aviation
3rd April, 2008
The government published forecasts for carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in Nov 2007. The forecasts are in the document ‘UK air passenger demand and carbon dioxide forecasts’, which was published at the same time as the Heathrow expansion consultation documents. The full document (pdf) can be found at http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/aviation/environmentalissues/.
The forecasts of emissions are:
|
Year |
CO2 (million tonnes) |
| 2005 | 37.5 |
| 2010 | 42.0 |
| 2020 | 50.0 |
| 2030 | 58.9 |
| 2040 | 61.1 |
| 2050 | 60.3 |
For a description of how these figures were derived and some comments on them, see AEF summary and commentary (7 page Word document). See also the page describing the UK Air Passenger Demand Forecasts that underlie the CO2 forecasts.
A booklet has been written by Brendon Sewill for Airport Watch called ‘FallibleForecasts‘ (15pp; 240kbytes). It critiques the DfT CO2 forecasts and also the underlying passenger forecasts. It is complementary to the AEF paper, being more accessible and published in paper form. Paper copies available from AEF.