Accounting for the carbon emissions from domestic air routes in China

The impact of Chinese airport infrastructure on airline pollutant emissions: A hybrid stochastic-neural network approach based on utility functions

With China being the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases and its aviation sector burgeoning, the environmental performance of Chinese airlines has global significance. Amidst rising demands for eco-friendly practices from both customers and regulators, the interplay between airport infrastructure and environmental performance becomes pivotal. This research offers an innovative methodology to gauge the environmental performance of Chinese airlines, emphasizing the distance traveled between airports using weighted additive utility functions. Leveraging neural networks, the study investigates the impact of various airport infrastructural characteristics on environmental performance. Noteworthy findings indicate that ground control measures, automatic information services at origin airports, surface concrete on runways at both ends, and a centerline lighting system in destination airports positively influence environmental performance. In contrast, longer and wider runways at origin airports, increased distances to control towers, and asphalt runways at destination airports adversely affect it. These insights not only underscore the importance of strategic infrastructure enhancements for reducing carbon footprints but also hold profound policy implications. As global climate change remains at the forefront, fostering sustainable airport infrastructure in China can significantly contribute to worldwide mitigation efforts.

Civil aviation emissions in Argentina

The impact of aviation on climate change is reflected in increasing emissions of CO2 and other pollutants from fuel burning emitted at high altitudes, representing 2.9 % of total Greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions in 2019. However, mitigations options for decarbonization of aviation are difficult to implement given operational safety, technology maturity, energy density and other constraints. One alternative for mitigation is the use of certified sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) with lower carbon intensity than conventional jet fuel (CJF). This research presents an inventory of Argentine civil aviation emissions for its domestic and international flights, and analyzes the possibility of supplying SAF as a mitigation strategy given its abundant biomass production. Argentine aviation activity is presented as a monthly 4D (latitude, longitude, altitude and time) spatial inventory for the interval 2001-2021, based on origin and destination city pairs, aircraft types and airlines. Fuel consumption and pollutant emissions were calculated for landing-and-take-off and cruise phases. Monthly domestic ranged from 67 to 179 kt CO_2eq (2001-2019). Annual peak values occurred in 2019 consuming 560 kt CJF and direct emitting of 1.77 Mt CO_2eq. While Revenue-Passenger-Kilometer (RPK) grew almost 4 times (4.18 × 10⁹ in 2001 to 16.42 × 10⁹ in 2019), the number of flights changed only 1.5 times (from 98,000 in 2002 to 152,000 in 2019). The main efficiency indexes varied from 97 t CJF/RPK, 308 gCO_2eq/RPK to 34 t CJF/RPK, 107 gCO_2eq/RPK between 2001 and 2019, respectively, showing an average annual improvement of 3.5 % due to partial fleet renewal, especially from 2015 onwards. Emissions of other pollutants for 2019 reached total values of CO 14.14 kt; NOx 6.77 kt; PM tot 55.12 kt. For the period 2001-2019, international aviation consumed between 1 Mt - 1.5 Mt CJF, directly emitting between 3.30 and 4.80 Mt of CO_2eq; RPKs went from 6.234 × 10⁹ to 20.524 × 10⁹; the efficiency indices ranged from 529 to 240 gCO_2eq/RPK. The most important changes occurred with an optimization of routes and number of flights and the replacement of the four-engines (B747, A380) by more efficient twin-engines (B777, A330) aircraft. Argentina is not required to any offsetting regulatory program due to its small aviation market (approx. 0.22 % global market in 2019), nor has to date certified SAF production pathways, nevertheless it has potential for SAF availability based on actual biofuels production (ethanol, biodiesel and soybean oil) and biomass feedstock's existences. In this sense this studies proposes that 2019 domestic fuel consumption could be supplied using 79 % exportable amounts of sugarcane ethanol (257 ± 53 kt) (by Ethanol to Jet ETJ) and 34 % of exportable soybean oil (1079 ± 160 kt) (by hydroprocessed esters and fatty acids- HEFA) pathways. For this scenario average GHG emissions reached 1.321 ± 0.115 Mt CO2eq; which would imply a 62 % of the current emission value using CJF (2.17Mt CO2eq), or savings of about 838 kt CO2eq (38 %). At the 2019 level of harvest and biofuel production, up to 1.4 Mt of SAF could be produced from sugarcane ethanol/ETJ and soybean oil/HEFA mitigating up to 1.8 MtCO2eq. A 35 kt CO_2eq annual sectoral national mitigation strategy could be reached by using 14 kt of SAF.

Protocol to calculate aircraft emissions for international air routes in South America

Recently, aviation pollution has drawn important social attention. The protocol proposed in this paper can simultaneously calculate the overall emissions of six aviation pollutants (CO2, CO, HC, NOx, SO2, and PM2.5), including the landing and take-off emissions and climb/cruise/descent emissions. The international routes in South America during 2019-2021 are an example to illustrate the use of this protocol. This protocol can provide a methodological basis for calculating aviation pollutant emissions in different countries and regions. For complete details on the use and execution of this protocol, please refer to Cui et al. (2022b).1.

Impacts of the COVID-19 on all aircraft emissions of international routes in South America

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on South America’s economic development, as well as its international civil aviation industry. This paper seeks to calculate the emissions of six pollutions (CO₂, CO, HC, NOx, SO₂, and PM2.5) from the international routes in South America during 2019–2021 and discusses the impacts of COVID-19 on the emission change. The modified BFFM2-FOA-FPM method is proposed to unify the CO₂ and non-CO₂ calculations. The calculated results' average error rate is about 5.12%. The results showed that COVID-19 affected all emissions, including the number of routes, average flight distance, aircraft configuration, the proportion of CCD phase emissions, average emissions, etc. In addition, some airlines increased the number of flights and aircraft types during the pandemic, increasing emissions. The results give a reasonable data basis for the aviation industry in South America to formulate emission reduction policies.

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Calculated the overall emissions of the international routes in South America

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The modified BFFM2-FOA-FPM method is proposed to unify the CO₂ and non-CO₂ calculations

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Affected by the epidemic, some regional aircrafts were widely used in 2020

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The average emissions of the routes and airlines decreased significantly

Accounting for the aircraft emissions of China's domestic routes during 2014-2019

The “13th Five-Year Plan” of civil aviation energy conservation and emission reduction impacts China’s domestic aviation exchanges. However, few researchers pay attrition to the impact of the 13th Five-Year Plan on aviation emissions. This paper intends to calculate the emissions of six pollutants (CO₂, CO, HC, NO_x, PM2.5, and SO₂) in China’s domestic airlines from 2014 to 2019 and explore the impact of the 13th Five-Year Plan on emissions changes. In this paper, the improved BFFM2-FOA-FPM method is used to unify the calculation of CO₂ and other aviation emissions. The error rate between the estimate and the official data was about 6.45%. The results show that the 13th Five-Year Plan has impacted on aviation emissions, including the number of routes and airlines, aircraft configuration, air routes, and airline unit turnover emissions. Additionally, the 13th Five-Year Plan’s effect is not significant, and it does not promote the reduction of emissions on domestic routes.