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

Abstract

Transition scenarios help assess sectoral decarbonisation pathways, yet their cost-effectiveness is rarely assessed for aviation, despite existing metrics. This paper addresses this gap by adapting carbon abatement cost metrics to transition scenarios and integrating them into AeroMAPS, an open-source model for aviation decarbonisation. These metrics are then used to build Marginal Abatement Cost Curves (MACCs). Rather than directly reading conclusions from them, a novel approach is introduced: integrating MACCs into the model as an indicator of overall scenario cost-effectiveness. Combined with existing scenario metrics, this allows for both scenario evaluation and iterative refinement. By comparing abatement costs to carbon values derived from global policies, sectoral scenarios can be aligned with these. An application to an illustrative aviation decarbonisation scenario shows that energy substitution measures become economically viable only under ambitious policy conditions. Finally, the paper discusses key limitations that must be addressed before extending this approach to other sectors.

Keywords

Reference

Antoine Salgas, Gilles Lafforgue, Scott Delbecq, and Thomas Planès, “Enhanced marginal abatement cost curves for analysing and designing aviation decarbonisation scenarios”, Transportation Research, n. 176, September 2025.