Military Aircraft: Exhaust Emissions

(asked on 14th December 2020) - View Source

Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the indirect impact on the climate of RAF flights from the formation of aircraft contrails.


Answered by
Baroness Goldie Portrait
Baroness Goldie
This question was answered on 23rd December 2020

There has not been a direct assessment of contrails formed by RAF flights. However, the Department for Transport has published scientific assessments covering all aviation.

The most recent scientific assessment of the historical, global, impact of aviation on the environment, including through contrails, is presented in the recent publication "The Contribution of global aviation to anthropogenic climate forcing for 2000 to 2018" by Lee et al., 2020, a copy of which is available in The Library of the House.

Reticulating Splines