Airlines and airport operators in Europe could be included in a new carbon dioxide emissions trading scheme within five years, despite opposition to any such move from the USA.
Flight International has learned that the European Commission is set to launch a study this week into extending the European Union's emission trading scheme, which starts on 1 January, to aviation. At the moment, non-stationary sources of emission are exempt from the programme, under which companies earn credits for reducing emissions that can be swapped with or sold to heavier polluters.
The EC says the study will "complement previous studies on other instruments to control aviation pollution" that have included kerosene taxes and standard emission charges.
The report is due to be published in the middle of next year, the EC says, and "will help the Commission to draw policy conclusions on how to address aviation's impact on the climate". If adopted, aviation could be included in the scheme by 2009.
The EC legalised a fuel tax for internal EU flights last November, but as yet no country has implemented it, as bilateral air service agreements, notably with the USA, proscribe kerosene taxes.
The EC also fears airlines "tankering", or taking extra on-board fuel outside the EU, producing a market distortion. EC studies point to aviation being the fastest-growing single source of greenhouse gas emissions, increasing at a rate of 3% a year and the EC is understood to be keen to reduce emissions from aircraft, identifying emission trading as a less politically fraught way of controlling aviation pollution.
The study comes weeks after the European Parliament adopted a resolution rejecting US-led moves to exempt aviation from emissions charges in all International Civil Aviation Organisation member states.
Despite lobbying from the US government, which this week has again challenged the impact of carbon dioxide on the environment, the ICAO council has not adopted the resolution, and has instead requested "additional guidance on the subject".
JUSTIN WASTNAGE / LONDON
Source: Flight International
