The Challenge of Sourcing Global Data
A strategic objective for the ICCT is providing analysis that aids policy makers, when it comes to determining the precise amount of emissions associated with flights, that can be broken down by passenger and freight operations, as well as domestic and international flights.
To better understand carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions associated with commercial aviation, The ICCT wanted to develop a bottom-up, global aviation CO2 inventory for 2018. In order to do this, they required historical operations data to feed into their aircraft emissions modelling software.
However, prior to partnering with OAG they were only able to estimate fuel burn and CO2 emissions from commercial flights that departed or arrived at a U.S. airport due to limited operations data publicly available from the U.S. Department of Transportation.
In Depth Global Data
The ICCT partnered with OAG using a defined Analyser data set including the following variables for passenger and cargo airlines - Air Carrier, Departure Airport, Arrival Airport, Aircraft Type and departures (number of flights) to determine aircraft pairs for each route, and the number of routes flow. From this data they were able to select the correct aircraft types for their emission modelling software. This has allowed the ICCT to determine CO2 emissions by aircraft type and allocate by either passenger or freight movement.
The OAG dataset has been central to the production of the ICCT’s latest working paper, “CO2 emissions from commercial aviation 2018”. The report has been covered by numerous media outlets around the world, including Der Spiegel, Le Monde, the Guardian, New York Times, Reuters, and the Associated Press. After publishing the report, the ICCT has received requests from policymakers and other organizations to discuss their findings and to collaborate on ways to reduce the climate impact of commercial aviation.
