Work

Enhanced marginal abatement cost curves for analysing and designing aviation decarbonisation scenarios

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Marginal Abatement Cost Curves (MACCs) are valuable for evaluating decarbonisation opportunities but have limitations when used alone for policymaking. This paper presents a methodology to integrate MACCs into AeroMAPS, an open-source model focusing on aviation decarbonisation. This integration enhances the possible analyses by introducing dynamic MACCs that, combined with other scenario metrics, address some previous concerns such as carbon lock-ins.Then, by defining appropriate abatement costs, the methodology allows for assessing the economic desirability of each abatement option considering economy-wide carbon values. This enables evaluating or designing sectoral policies consistent with global policies. An illustrative aviation decarbonisation scenario combining more efficient aircraft and operations with the ambitious deployment of low-carbon energy sources is analysed for two carbon value trajectories. It demonstrates how air transport decarbonisation is sensitive to global policy ambition. Finally, the paper discusses remaining limitations and research gaps to address before generalising this approach to other sectors.

Source: Transportation Research Part D Transport and Environment

DOI: 10.1016/j.trd.2025.104836

Authors: Antoine Salgas, Gilles Lafforgue, Thomas Planès, Scott Delbecq

Institutions: École Nationale de l’Aviation Civile, Institut Supérieur de l'Aéronautique et de l'Espace (ISAE-SUPAERO), Université de Toulouse, TBS Education

Language: English

Topic: Advanced Aircraft Design and Technologies

Subfield: Global and Planetary Change

Field: Environmental Science

Domain: Physical Sciences

SDGs: Climate action, Industry, innovation and infrastructure

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $3,450