Air Transport Within Emissions Trading Regime: Network-Based Analysis of United States and India

Air transport is one of the fastest growing sources of greenhouse gas emissions but is vital to economic development. In this paper, the Aviation Integrated Model, currently under development at the University of Cambridge, is used to assess the impact of an open emissions trading scheme on the US and Indian air transport systems. The analysis is based on three internally consistent projections of per capita gross domestic product (GDP), population, oil price, and carbon price until 2050. Over this period, relative to a reference case, noticeable reductions in air travel demand, fuel use, CO2 emissions and required airport capacity growth only result in the most stringent scenario of stabilizing the atmospheric CO2 concentration at 450 ppm – an extremely challenging task. The air transport system response would further increase if including non-CO2 emissions from aviation in the trading scheme. This study also finds a different response of the short haul, medium haul, and long haul segments to emissions trading associated with any stringency level. A comparison between the aviation system impacts in the US and India suggests a generally smaller response of the Indian air traffic system to a given CO2 emissions trading scheme.

• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Schafer, Andreas
  • Dray, Lynnette
  • Evans, Antony
  • Reynolds, Tom
  • Rogers, Helen
  • Vera-Morales, Maria
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 88th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2009-1-11 to 2009-1-15
• Date: 2009

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: DVD
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 15p
• Monograph Title: TRB 88th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers DVD

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Air quality management; Air transportation; Aircraft exhaust gases; Carbon dioxide; Emissions trading; Greenhouse gases; Gross domestic product; Pollutants; Travel demand
• Uncontrolled Terms: Fuel prices
• Geographic Terms: India; United States
• Subject Areas: Aviation; Environment; I15: Environment;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01126773
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 09-2468
• Files: TRIS, TRB
• Created Date: Apr 17 2009 9:56AM