Delineating the Skyscape: Mapping Sustainable Aviation Policy Levers for Climate Risk

Abstract

The aviation sector faces a growing risk of failing to meet international climate targets, as current mitigation efforts fall short of the scale and pace required. Closing this gap demands the aligned mobilisation of technical, societal, and operational solutions across emerging transition pathways, underscoring the need for coherent and timely policy intervention. This viewpoint article provides a stocktake of sustainable aviation policy levers across five key impact domains identified in recent academic literature and research reports: system efficiency improvements, sustainable aviation fuels, alternative aircraft design, air travel demand management, and the mitigation of non-carbon dioxide climate effects. Together, these domains shape the sector’s transition towards a climate-neutral future, offering an integrated perspective on how strategic and well-sequenced policy design can accelerate change. The article outlines key policy mechanisms for addressing aviation-related climate risk and introduces a heuristic framework for rethinking system-level governance. It highlights the need for the effective and coordinated deployment of regulatory, economic, voluntary, and capacity-building instruments across multiple stakeholder groups in the sector. Collectively, the design of policy strategy, the choice of instruments, and the styles of policy processes warrant greater attention from this cross-cutting scoping viewpoint.