Drivers of CO2 emissions in international aviation: the case of Japan

Abstract

We estimated the CO _2 emissions produced by more than 40 000 international flights associated with Japan’s two major airlines (Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airways), and identified the drivers for these CO _2 emissions using an index decomposition analysis conducted between 2005 and 2015. The results showed that introducing the more fuel-efficient Boeing 787 led to CO _2 emission reductions of 1.3 million tons by the two companies. However, these reductions were canceled out by the total number of flights and distances per passenger attributable to the airlines’ operations. We conclude that the environmental and business strategy of introducing greener aircraft with better fuel efficiency was insufficient for mitigating aircraft emissions’ effects on climate.

Keywords

• CO2 emission
• aviation sector
• international flight
• index decomposition analysis