Flying Green: The Low-Carbon Airport of Tomorrow

Abstract

The International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) estimates that 918 million metric tons of CO2 is generated from global aviation operations, including commercial, belly freight and dedicated freight. Additionally, passenger air travel is producing the fastest rate of individual emissions growth of any economic sector in the United States. Because of this growth, the emissions from the U.S. commercial aviation sector outpace current policy mechanisms designed to combat climate change and reduce emissions. Current science underscores the need to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050. Achieving net zero emissions would require massive and immediate decarbonization of the economy, including a price on carbon.

As an Energy Policy and Climate (EPC) master’s candidate, and legislative assistant on Capitol Hill, I will use my combined policy research and analysis skills to conduct a policy gap analysis on federal aviation environment policy. Then use my legislative background to write a new policy based on the outlined and documented research in my capstone report. The purpose of this capstone report is twofold. The first is to perform a policy gap analysis on the current state of existing federal aviation greenhouse gas (GHG) emission environmental policy to identify where there might be policy deficiency that can be addressed through new targeted policies. The second goal is to develop new policy framework that will help reduce GHG emissions in the commercial aviation sector.