A Stand.Earth report reconstructs the shift of logistics from sea to air for freight transport. The model that has established itself as an emergency response during the pandemic is still adopted and expanded by big as UPS, FEDEX, Amazon Air
The Covid-19 left us a legacy of a boom in emissions of cargo aircraft
By the end of 2023, emissions from cargo aircraft worldwide had grown 25% from 2019 levels. In quantitative terms it is about 22 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent. A reduced fraction of the 800 MtCO2 issued in 2022 by the aviation sector as a whole. But it is a fact not to be underestimated for some reasons. This sector is still in full growth with regard to greenhouse gases. And, for freight, the Covid-19 shock on global supply chains has structurally changed the game.
Emissions cargo aircraft, why do they continue to grow?
The boom in air freight transport is attributable to the “expectations of buyers of fast deliveries” and the “change in the post-pandemic economy“, stresses a Stand.earth report published on June 26. Until 2019, air transport was used only for perishable goods, urgent deliveries and luxury items. Global logistics was firmly hinged on sea transport. Covid-19 changed the picture.
From 2020 “the unprecedented interruptions of the marine transport and the supply chain have created a distortion of the market historically unique: the goods not urgent, not perishable and of inferior value were more and more transported through aerial transport”. And the data updated last year suggest that it was not a parenthesis: the anomaly “actually not only continues, but in some cases grows”.
Second the relationship, last year the operators of aerial cargo have carried 300 thousand flights in more regarding 2019, an increase that grazes 30%. The largest share of this increase is located in the United States, which alone accounts for 40% of global cargo aircraft emissions.
To pull this trend are the big shipping companies, on all UPS and FEDEX. These companies have continued to operate “as if the pandemic and disruptions in the supply chain continue even today” and the use of air transport “was a necessity“. In the same vein, Amazon Air is catching up, and in 2019-2023 it has repeatedly doubled its carbon footprint year on year. In the same period, CO2 and NOx pollution at global airports grew by 25% as a direct result of increased emissions from cargo aircraft.
“With 99.8% of aviation fuel produced from fossil fuels and the adoption of low-carbon replacement measures many years or decades away, short-term strategies to reduce air cargo shipments remain key to curbing the increase in greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution,” concludes the report.
