Aviation Demand Management's Role in Deep Decarbonisation Pathways

This paper assesses climate mitigation scenarios from 17 different organisations that include international aviation in their scenarios.

The majority of the scenarios were published in the last two years and are based on net-zero or Paris-compliant targets. Some older scenarios are based on lower decarbonisation targets (e.g. an 80% reduction by 2050).

We find that 14 of the 17 organisations incorporate demand management into their scenarios in order to reduce aviation demand below projected unconstrained levels of the remaining three organisations, two are sectoral bodies (ICAO and IATA), neither of which have concrete plans for Paris Agreement-compatible emissions reductions. The remaining scenario was produced by the consultancy Ecofys and assumes that aircraft efficiency and biofuels can decarbonise an unconstrained aviation sector.