Planetary boundaries and regional justice: Rethinking aviation transitions through AESA
Résumé
Despite growing scrutiny of aviation’s environmental footprint, no study to date has assessed future aviation pathways through the lens of the Planetary Boundaries framework. Our team conducted the first absolute environmental sustainability assessment (AESA) of global civil aviation futures, revealing that even ambitious decarbonization scenarios transgress core planetary boundaries (climate change and biosphere integrity) when assessed against an ethically grounded share of safe operating space. Building on this foundation, the present work extends AESA to the regional scale, addressing the need to consider divergent regional capacities and responsibilities in sustainability transitions. We evaluate region-specific aviation scenarios sourced from institutional, industrial, and academic literature, using prospective life-cycle assessment combined with Integrated Assessment Model projections via the premise package. We integrate key sources of regional differentiation, including electricity mix evolution, biomass availability, and historical contributions to global impacts, and we explore multiple ethical-based allocation principles to operationalize fair regional planetary boundaries budgets. Our results reveal sharp contrasts between regions: some face tighter sustainability constraints due to high historical impacts and limited renewable resources, while others may pursue lower-impact pathways. These differences are masked in global assessments, but essential for designing just and effective transition strategies. This work advances aviation AESA by embedding regional granularity and ethical considerations, offering actionable insights for sustainable aviation futures.