The International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) has recently issued a working paper which detailed the CO₂ emissions from commercial aviation for 2018.

In a statement, ICCT said CO₂ emissions from all commercial operations in 2018 totaled 918 million metric tons last year — representing 2.4% of global CO₂ emissions from fossil fuel use.

Using aviation industry values, there has been a 32% increase in emissions over the past five years, it added.

ICCT noted that flights departing airports in the US and its territories emitted about 24% of global passenger transport-related CO₂, two-thirds of which came from domestic flights.

The top five countries for passenger aviation-related carbon emissions were rounded out by China, the UK, Japan, and Germany.

"This working paper details and analyzes a global, transparent, and geographically allocated carbon dioxide emissions inventory for commercial aviation for calendar year 2018. It aids policymakers, who cannot currently determine the precise amount of emissions associated with flights departing from an individual country, nor can they distinguish the proportion of emissions from passenger-and-freight and all-freight operations, or from domestic and international flights," ICCT said.

According to the report, 43% of CO₂ from commercial aviation was linked to passenger movement in narrowbody aircraft, followed by widebody jets (33%) and regional aircraft (5%).

The remaining aviation emissions were driven by freight carriage.