India among top 5 developing countries in aviation emissions in 2019, study finds

New Delhi: In 2019, India was among the top five economically developing countries in terms of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from aviation, a new research has found.

Calculating "nearly real-time" aviation emissions using global flight data, researchers found that overall, the US, China and Great Britain were the topmost contributors, with 22 per cent, 14 per cent and roughly 4 per cent shares respectively.

However, among the economically developing countries, India was found to be the third biggest contributor with close to 3 per cent share in global CO2 emissions from aviation, following China at 14 per cent and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) at more than 3 per cent.

The research team at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology also found that India's share in global CO2 emissions from domestic aviation was the third highest at 1.5 per cent.

"The countries with the highest absolute domestic aviation CO2 emissions (global percentage share in total CO2 aviation emissions in parentheses) are the USA (13.4 per cent), China (8.9 per cent), India (1.5 per cent), Russia (1.2 per cent), and Japan (1.1 per cent)", the authors wrote.

The findings were published in the journal "Environmental Research Letters".

For their analysis, the researchers used the model called AviTeam, which computes the fuel burnt for individual flights for the entire envelope based on a given trajectory.

When the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change treaty was signed, high-income countries were required to report their aviation-related emissions. However, the low- and middle-income countries, including China and India, were not required to report these emissions, even though they could voluntarily do so.

The researchers said the model is the first to provide information for the 45 lesser-developed countries that have never inventoried their greenhouse gas emissions from aviation.

"Our work fills the reporting gaps, so that this can inform policy and hopefully improve future negotiations", said first author Jan Klenner, a PhD candidate at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

"Now, we have a much clearer picture of aviation emissions per country, including previously unreported emissions, which tells you something about how we can go about reducing them", said co-author Helene Muri, a research professor at the university.

The ability to calculate nearly real-time aviation emissions could also provide an important tool as the industry makes changes to de-carbonise, according to co-author Anders Hammer Stromman, a professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

"I think it very nicely illustrates the potential in this type of work, where we have previously relied on statistical offices and reporting loops that can take a year or more to get this kind of information", he said.

"This model allows us to do instant emissions modelling - we can calculate the emissions from global aviation as it happens", said Stromman.