Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, a major hub in international aviation, signals no plans to grow. Instead, it aims to shrink. The reason is clear: to keep climate goals within reach this decade, flying must drop. Even with advances in sustainable fuels, technology alone cannot meet these ambitions.
This stance comes from a report released recently by the airport. The document lays out the scarce carbon budget available to stay below the warming threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius set by the Paris Agreement, a target meant to curb the worst effects of climate change.
To avoid breaching that limit, Schiphol set a goal to cut CO2 emissions by 32% by 2030. About 20% can come from technical and organizational improvements, but the remaining 12% will rely on demand management and a reduction in flights.
The aviation sector often avoids asking how much aviation is allowed, but Schiphol, as a government-owned asset, should benefit Dutch society. The central question becomes what is the optimal flight level for this society, asks Stefan Grebe, head of aviation at CE Delft, a firm that contributed to the report. Bram Peerlings, a sustainable aviation researcher at the Netherlands Aerospace Centre and co-author of the study, adds that the aim is to fit Schiphol into a world aligned with Paris goals.
Noise and nitrogen
Two years ago, the Dutch government proposed lowering Schiphol’s annual flights from 500,000 to 440,000. The main drivers are excessive noise and nitrogen emissions, areas where the airport struggles to meet legal limits.
Neighbors and the powerful Dutch livestock sector, facing cuts in animal emissions, have urged a shift toward degrowth. Pressure from these groups has pushed a right-leaning, pro-business government to back reducing aviation activity.
Community groups have stepped up complaints, and the fear is that more restrictions could end flight operations at night, a move that would open up land for development in a housing-short nation. Transit passengers contribute little to the Dutch economy when weighed against their emission costs, and a portion of flights may be economically detrimental, argues Paul Peeters, a sustainable tourism professor at the University of Breda who was not involved in the report.
At present, the government’s mitigation plan faces EU hurdles, and airport management has called the mood a disappointment. A Schiphol spokesman highlights that restrictions could include banning overnight flights and keeping private jets or noisy aircraft away from schedules.
CO2 elephant
The central issue in the Dutch climate debate is aviation CO2, the primary greenhouse gas driving climate change. The Schiphol study addresses this head on. It derives the carbon budget from the global limit needed to stay within the Paris Agreement targets, which is estimated at about 500 gigatonnes from 2020 to 2050 with a 50% chance of preventing warming beyond 1.5 degrees, according to IPCC calculations.
From that global budget, aviation is assigned about 3.9%, based on International Energy Agency estimates. While aviation currently accounts for around 2.4% of emissions, it remains a sector that is hard to decarbonize. The next step is to fairly allocate this 3.9% across airports worldwide, adjusting for expected rises in emissions from flights in Asia and Africa.
Grebe stresses the urgency to curb emissions in the coming decade to meet Schiphol’s remaining carbon budget. Without rapid reductions, more drastic measures may be required later. The only immediate path appears to be cutting flights; efficiency gains and sustainable fuels will arrive too late to make a difference now, he notes. Numerically, Schiphol must cut emissions by at least 12% by reducing flights in 2030, with no other viable route to reach the target.
How does an airport shrink?
Cutting emissions by 12% does not automatically mean a 12% drop in flights. At Schiphol, long-haul flights account for the majority of emissions, about 80% from 20% of routes. Reducing long-haul flights could yield only a small decrease in total flights, while trimming short-haul services would require a larger reduction, Peerlings explains.
The study was accompanied by calls for strong measures such as taxes proportional to flight length, surcharges on kerosene, and penalties on certain flights. The underlying principle is clear: polluters should bear the cost of their impact, according to the airport’s statement.
The aviation sector has pledged to reach zero emissions by 2050. Yet the study emphasizes that achieving that milestone depends not only on the end goal but also on the chosen path to get there, Peerlings concludes.