An assessment of the aviation industry’s impact on air pollution from its emissions: worldwide and the Ukraine

Abstract CO2 emissions are one of the main causes of the global problem of climate change, the solution to which requires the efforts of every country. One of the main polluters is the energy sector, which includes transport. Despite the seemingly small share of aviation in emissions, its role as a polluter and CO2 emitter cannot be underestimated due to calculated specific rate and a number of factors that were researched. The purpose of this study was to analyze the aviation share in the polluters’ structure and to study if Covid-19 restrictions influence on it, to investigate the share of CO2 emissions from air transport in Ukraine and to assess its impact, to forecast CO2 emissions in Ukraine by 2030 and to build scenarios of possible changes in the direction of decarbonization in the aviation industry. Analysis and synthesis, comparison, methods of pairwise regression and modelling scenarios were used for solving these tasks. The results show that the aviation industry could achieve the carbon reduction targets only by applying different types of carbon pricing with conducting the research and development in the sphere. The last significant improvement in aircraft design technologies and flight operations was achieved almost 60 years ago. Economic incentives at the international and local scales should be used to stimulate aviation manufacturers to invest significant money on R&D to find stable solutions to achieve decarbonization. Development of Ukrainian aviation industry should not stand aside from global trends and must meet modern challenges, including environmental issues. The created scenarios show solutions to achieve decarbonization goals that align with EU best practices.