Graphite thermal pads are available for consumers (e.g: Thermal Grizzly Carbonaut,
IC Diamond Graphite) which offer similar performance (within 5°C) to paste without this issue.
Edit: to answer my own question it looks like Apple uses thermal paste but the cooling in the M2 MacBook Air looks extremely flimsey to the point of being almost non-existent. I doubt it will be affected much at all by this.
Edit: to answer my own question it looks like Apple uses thermal paste but the cooling in the M2 MacBook Air looks extremely flimsey to the point of being almost non-existent. I doubt it will be affected much at all by this.