Net Zero To Cost European Aviation Over €500B More Than Forecast, Report Says

BRUSSELS—Reaching net zero by 2050 will cost Europe over €500 billion ($516 billion) more than previously estimated, according to an updated Destination 2050 roadmap presented by airline, aerospace and air traffic management industry organizations in Brussels on Feb. 4.

The Destination 2050 roadmap, which sets out the steps toward the European industry’s long-term net zero goal, highlights the important role of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). According to the new roadmap, 35% of the emissions reductions out to 2050 will come from SAF, coming from both biomass-sourced and synthetic or e-fuels.

That calculation is based on European airlines' fuel mix being made up of 80% SAF by 2050. That proportion goes beyond the 70% mandated by the European Commission's ReFuelEU legislation, but takes into account airline SAF commitments which in many cases go beyond mandated levels.

“The biggest obstacle, the biggest risk is the cost of SAF,” said Ourania Georgoutsakou, managing director of trade group Airlines for Europe (A4E), at a briefing. 

Armando Brunini, president of ACI Europe, which represents airports, said the projected costs of decarbonizing aviation had skyrocketed in the four years since the last roadmap. “It’s €500 billion more in costs to achieve net zero compared to what we had estimated in the first version of the roadmap,” he said.

The detail of the new roadmap estimates total expenditures of €2.4 trillion to reach the target. That marks an increase of €510 billion (27%) from the €1.89 trillion set out in The Price Of Net Zero, a report published by Destination 2050 in 2023.

Accounting to the increase, the latest report says, “The majority of this increase stems from rising premium expenditures, which have grown from €820 billion to €1.3 trillion (+57%), driven largely by higher [SAF] market price estimates.”

With SAF production now underway and European mandates in place, the authors of the report were able to base their projections on the real, fluctuating costs of SAF.

To surmount the SAF cost obstacle, measures including investment incentives, SAF allowances to close the cost gap and a book and claim system to ensure the uptake of SAF across the region are needed, Georgoutsakou said. “We need to close that cost gap,” she said.

The industry groups are calling on the European Commission to focus on aviation decarbonization as part of the Clean Industrial Deal, the bloc’s broad industrial decarbonization strategy, and its Sustainable Transport Investment Plan.

Research institute Royal Netherlands Aerospace Center (NLR) and economic consultancy SEO Amsterdam Economics were tasked with updating the roadmap, which bases its forecast on a 2019 baseline and traffic forecasts using a hypothetical “no-action scenario” to pinpoint the contributions different measures will have on reducing aviation’s impact on aviation as the industry aims for net zero by 2050.

One major change from the earlier, 2021 version of the report, according to co-author, Elisabeth van der Sman, sustainability team leader at NLR, is that the projected role of hydrogen aircraft technology has decreased. Hydrogen is now estimated to account for 2% of the emissions reduction, while in 2021 it had been earmarked as accounting for 20% of the reduction.

The report highlights current and future technological improvements to conventionally fueled aircraft contributing 24% of the 2050 emissions reduction.

Operational improvements are expected to account for 6% of the reduction.

The 2021 roadmap earmarked technology improvements to kerosene aircraft as accounting for 17% of the emissions reduction. SAF accounted for 34%.

The aviation industry has for many years been calling for a far-reaching revamp of airspace in the region to boost efficiency and cut down on wasted fuel thanks to indirect routings. The recent Single European Sky reforms agreed at European level were criticized by industry as not going far enough.

The updated roadmap shows decarbonization measures that make flying more expensive having a greater impact than before. Economic measures, SAF costs and hydrogen technology costs that will increase prices—and therefore reduce air travel demand—will now account for 19% of the overall emissions reductions by 2050, up from a previous estimate of 15%.

The report also covers non-CO₂ effects of aviation for the first time. This area has increasingly been in focus, particularly since a requirement for European airlines to monitor and report their non-CO₂ emissions came into force at the beginning of the year.

“We need a holistic approach that considers both CO₂ and non-CO₂ measures,” van der Sman said.

A4E and ACI Europe presented the updated Destination 2050 roadmap in Brussels alongside the European Regions Airline Association (ERA), aerospace and defense association ASD and CANSO, which represents air traffic management organizations. 

The drive to reduce emissions comes against a backdrop of intense focus on improving the region’s competitiveness, as highlighted in the recent Mario Draghi report, which urges using decarbonization efforts as a tool to improve European competitiveness.

“We are facing the harsh reality of climate change, no doubt about that, and at the same time we need to translate the Draghi report into action to make Europe more competitive,” Brunini said.

“The target is still achievable,” Brunini continued. “At the same time it’s clear that we are not going to be able to make it alone because the challenges are much higher than what we had estimated at the beginning—there’s a window of opportunity and if we miss that we won’t make it.”

Magda Kopczynska, director general at the EC's DG MOVE, said that there would be enough SAF for the 7% ReFuelEU target and that, with consistent efforts to boost investment and create the right environment and incentives, she was not concerned about the next one.

But looking further ahead, more effort will be required to boost the SAF industry. “One thing that I’m missing at a national level is the realization that SAF do not fall from the sky,” Kopczynska said. “The ecosystem to have the production on the ground, to have the availability at the right place, has to be created.”