Science
The impact of flying
Aviation has contributed approximately 4% to observed human-induced global warming to date, while being responsible for 2.4% of global annual emissions of CO2. The industry is projected to cause another 0.1 °C of warming by 2050, a 6%–17% share to the remaining 0.3 °C–0.8 °C to not exceed 1.5 °C–2 °C of global warming. (M Klöwer et al 2021 Environ. Res. Lett. 16 104027)
Figure: Aviation's contribution to global warming to 2050. (a) Annual historic and future annual carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions of aviation following four scenarios: No Pandemic, Back to Normal, Zero Long-Term Growth, and Long-Term Decline as explained in the text. (b) Daily flights of selected airports globally between 2019 and November 2020 and annual averages for all scenarios. (c) Cumulative warming-equivalent emissions of CO2 and non-CO2 effects of aviation since 1940 and the corresponding aviation-induced global warming. Scenarios are colour-coded as in (a). Image by M Klöwer et al, licensed CC BY 4.0.
Tourism
Tourism is a huge part of these emissions. In 2019, it's estimated that about 1.1 Gt CO2, or 25 times the emissions of Sweden, of the aviation emissions were caused by tourism.(Sun, YY., Faturay, F., Lenzen, M. et al. Drivers of global tourism carbon emissions. Nat Commun 15, 10384 (2024))
Potential by avoiding flying
Aviation was named as "the greatest Avoid potential" in demand-side mitigation in the IPCC Sixth Assessement Report through "reducing long-haul aviation and providing short-distance low-carbon urban infrastructure". (Creutzig, F.; Roy, J.; Devine-Wright, P.; Díaz-José, J.; et al. (2022). "Chapter 5: Demand, services and social aspects of mitigation" (PDF). IPCC AR6 WG3 2022. pp. 752–943. doi:10.1017/9781009157926.007)
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Read more about the Environmental impact of aviation on Wikipedia.