Seminar

Aviation in a 2 degree world?

DSRC entrance

David S. Lee, Centre for Air Transport and Environment (CATE), Manchester Metropolitan University

Wednesday, October 3, 2012, 3:30 pm Mountain Time
DSRC 2A305

Abstract

One of the current policy ambitions of the UNFCCC process is to aim for no more than a 2 degree increase in global mean surface temperatures over preindustrial levels by 2100. In 2011, at the Durban COP meeting, UNEP presented a report entitled "Bridging the Emissions Gap". This report examined the potential magnitude of global CO2 emissions by 2020, and by how much these might exceed a required emissions trajectory to achieve 2 degrees by 2100. In addition, the report examined the role of 'international emissions', i.e. so-called 'bunker fuels' from shipping and aviation that currently lie outside the Kyoto protocol and other international agreements because of difficulties in allocating responsibility for these emissions. This talk focuses on the potential range of aviation emissions (global, meaning international and domestic) according to literature values of future scenarios, and by how much they might be reduced by technological and market-based emission-reduction opportunities. The results are stark and politically controversial.

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