As climate change accelerates, along with demand for air travel, aviation must decarbonize.

The industry, through the Air Transport Action Group (ATAG) and the International Air Transport Association (IATA), other associations and an increasing number of nation states, has now committed to the ambitious target of net-zero emissions in aviation by 2050.

This transition to lower emissions is under way, but reaching the 2050 target will require a combination of solutions and technologies as well as the cooperation of investors, industry, innovators, government, academia and citizens. Sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), which produces 50–100% less net CO2 than fossil jet fuel on a life-cycle basis, is the most promising option today to reduce aviation’s carbon emissions.2 About 400,000 commercial flights have already been partially fuelled by SAF.3 Production costs will decline with market interventions, while the costs of climate change rise.

Grants and low-cost loans, offtake agreements, blending mandates and other programmes and policies can help the SAF industry achieve economies of scale.

This report explains how one conversion concept within the different SAF production pathways, power-to-liquid (PtL), could be scaled up for commercial use using renewable electricity from wind, solar, hydropower and other green sources along with captured carbon dioxide. The report makes the case for PtL as a solution to aviation emissions, describes how to overcome complex technical and operational production challenges, and outlines actions that could help scale PtL regionally and globally.