Science-based climate targets for aviation fall short on mitigation and implementation

The Science-Based Targets initiative (SBTi) provides guidelines for setting company-level climate targets consistent with the Paris Agreement warming limit. Criticisms of this framework fall into two main categories, namely, (i) issues related to target setting that result in inadequate corporate targets and (ii) issues related to climate action that result in uncertain and lacklustre implementation. Providing a comprehensive, sector-focused assessment of these issues, this paper investigates target setting and subsequent company action in aviation, which, despite limitations to abatement technology given existing growth projections, has seen an uptick in science-based targets. We find that the 2019–2035 absolute emission reductions in SBTi’s sector-specific aviation pathways are 31–44 percentage points smaller than in underlying global emission pathways, with most mitigation occurring after 2030. This mitigation gap means that while aviation emissions made up around 3% of global emissions in 2019, SBTi’s aviation emission pathways will make up 5%–7% of global 2035 emissions in the well-below 2°C and 1.5°C reference scenarios. Analysing company-level disclosures to assess action, we find that stated measures focus on efficiency improvements and resource-intensive fuel solutions. Based on these disclosures, it is not possible to independently verify whether stated measures will enable airlines to meet their emission reduction targets. While science-based targets signal ambitiousness and rapid emission reductions, the framework allows airlines to (i) set targets consistent with limited absolute emission reductions in the target period and (ii) pursue partial and risk-prone emission reduction strategies. Our findings thus point to a need for more stringent near-term aviation pathways, greater transparency in target-setting inputs and measure-specific transition plans with progress reporting for the SBTi to help close the emission gap for aviation. More generally, they call into question corporate climate action and governance that disregard the role of affluent consumption as a driver of global heating.