Aviation’s contribution to Australia’s emissions is growing substantially as a percentage of the country’s overall emission output, according to data shared at the CAPA Airlines Leader Summit in Cairns last week.
During the conference, Simon Elsegood, Head of Research at CAPA (pictured) shared stats that showed that last year, aviation contributed 5.2% of the country’s total emissions, whereas at the end of the 1980s, aviation was contributing just 1.2% of Australia’s emissions.
According to Elsegood, the growth of Australian aviation will see this number continue to rise unless the use of SAF starts to increase quickly.
“Australian aviation emissions are growing, they are growing as a total amount, and they are growing as a proportion of Australia’s emissions,” Elsegood shared with delegates.
“Air transport has doubled, and then doubled again, but Australian emissions are actually on a decline, so if aviation emissions keep going up while everyone else is going down, that proportion [aviations contribution to total Australian emissions] is only going to grow,” he added.
Challenging for Australia is that its investment in biofuels has been at low levels and the demand side is still lagging.
According to ING Think, the APAC region was estimated to have the ability to produce more than 1.8m tonnes (600m gallons) of SAF by the end of 2024 – equivalent to under 1.5% of jet fuel consumption of the region.
It also stated that Australia only had three projects in the pipeline in terms of SAF production and suggested that “the lack of a mandate here is likely holding back further investment”.
Elsegood’s data suggested similar.
“Australian airlines consumed eight billion litres of jet fuel last year and we burnt 10 million litres of SAF, which was all sourced overseas, so the big thing with SAF is investment, time, policy and leadership – they are the criteria for SAFs success,” he said.
Alarmingly, he also shared how significant the lack of investment in biofuel production was.
“Between 2000 and 2019, this country invested $30 million in biofuel production – that’s it.
“Between 2020 and 2023, we invested $32 million in biofuels production – over the next five years, $250 million are earmarked for biofuel production, and $1.5 billion is earmarked for low carbon fuels overall.”
He suggested that as Australia starts to scale up production, commercial viability will follow, but that this is becoming an urgent matter now.
“Passenger traffic doubled over the last 20 years – over the next decade, we’re going to add another 40 million passengers, about 75% of these will be in the domestic market.”
