Aviation: Carbon Emissions

(asked on 17th January 2022) - View Source

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent assessment he has made of the level of carbon emissions produced by the UK's aviation industry; and what steps he is taking with that industry to reduce carbon emissions from air travel in the UK.


Answered by
Robert Courts Portrait
Robert Courts
Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
This question was answered on 21st January 2022

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy publishes UK greenhouse gas emissions figures annually, including domestic and international aviation emissions. The final UK greenhouse gas emissions national statistics from 1990 to 2019 were published in February 2021 and are available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/final-uk-greenhouse-gas-emissions-national-statistics-1990-to-2019. It showed that in 2019, carbon dioxide emissions from UK domestic aviation were 1.4 Mt CO2e and carbon dioxide emissions from international aviation were 36.7 Mt CO2e.

The 2020 greenhouse gas emissions figures are due to be published on 1 February 2022.

In July 2021, the Department for Transport published the Jet Zero Consultation which sets out our vision for the aviation sector to reach net zero by 2050. We engaged with stakeholders extensively during the development of the consultation and are carefully considering consultation responses in the development of our final Jet Zero Strategy which we aim to publish later this year.

We are working closely with industry to reduce aviation emissions. We have established the Jet Zero Council, bringing together government, industry and academia to drive the delivery of new technologies and innovative ways to cut aviation emissions. We have been supporting the industry through £1.95bn of funding into aerospace R&D through the Aerospace Technology Institute (ATI) programme and recently confirmed the continuation of funding for the ATI programme to 2031. We have also recently announced £180 million of new funding to support the development of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) plants in the UK, building on the progress made through the previous Green Fuels Green Skies competition, and a £400 million partnership with Breakthrough Energy, through which SAF projects can bid for additional capital.

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