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Bibliographic citation:
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development: Environmental Statistics (2021 Edition). UK Data Service. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5257/oecd/env/2021

The main source used for the estimation of these CO2 emissions is a database compiled by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) with all commercial passenger and freight flights scheduled around the world. For each flight, this database includes information on the departure and arrival airports, the operating airline and the type of aircraft used. For each airline, we also know which country has delivered its Air Operator’s Certificate (AOC). An AOC is the approval granted by a national aviation authority to an aircraft operator allowing it to use aircrafts for commercial purposes. This information is used to estimate aviation-related CO2 emissions on a residence basis.

The ICAO database on scheduled commercial flights is coupled with a CO2 emission calculator provided by Eurocontrol. Given an aircraft type equipped with specific engines and a (great-circle) distance to travel, this tool calculates a flight trajectory, a quantity of fuel burnt and a quantity of CO2 emitted. Additional details are available in Eurocontrol (2016). This method corresponds to a Tier-3A methodology in the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for the compilation of national GHG inventories.

Specific treatment of general aviation for the United States: The ICAO database does not include general aviation (e.g. agricultural planes, private jets and helicopters). Among Annex-I countries to the UNFCCC, it is only for the US that public information is available on the corresponding CO2 emissions. According to the 2019 National Inventory Report for the US, these emissions largely occur on the domestic territory. We further assume that they are only caused by resident units. The aviation-related CO2 emissions for the US in this database include CO2 emissions from commercial passenger and freight flights, as for all other countries, as well as CO2 emissions related to general aviation, as reported in the US National Inventory Report.

Further information on the estimation methodology and its accuracy are available in the working paper "Estimating Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Emissions Related to Air Transport - A Contribution to the Compilation of Global Air Emission Accounts According to the SEEA ".

For comparison purposes, this database also includes information on aviation-related CO2 emissions that can be found in two official sources:

1) UNFCCC inventories

2) Air emission accounts (AEAs) compiled according to the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA). The information on aviation-related CO2 emissions is extracted from the complete AEAs available in the Air Emissions Accounts database.