Fossile fuel users association bids to exclude aviation from European carbon dioxide trading scheme
Environmental groups fear the long-awaited decision to include airlines in the European Union emissions trading scheme (EU-ETS) could be scuppered by a heavy industry lobby worried about rising carbon costs.
The European Commission formally recommended that airlines should be included in its carbon dioxide trading scheme last week, ending months of speculation. “The boom in flying is bringing with it a rapid rise in greenhouse gas emissions,” says EC environment commissioner Stavros Dimas.
At present 12,000 major industrial carbon producers across the EU are set emissions limits based on previous years’ totals, with each additional tonne of CO2 being chargeable. The theory is that heavy polluters can buy extra credits from companies reducing their emissions, as long as the total still reduces. Flight International has learnt that a lobby group made up largely of fossil fuel power generators, the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA), is aiming to stop aviation from being included in the next stage of the EU-ETS, due to start in 2007. The heavy polluters fear that aviation’s growth, despite the introduction of cleaner aircraft, will result in higher carbon prices.
The EC is forming a consultation body comprising airline associations, environmentalist groups and other interested parties. IETA says it “would expect to sit on the panel” and has appointed a former airline industry consultant to head its efforts on the issue.
Greenskies, a consortium of environmental pressure groups, says it fears the entry of groups representing heavy polluters and the hydrocarbon producers will politicise the process and risk delaying it too long to include aviation in the scheme.
The panel is tasked with finding a mechanism to include multinational airline operations into the scheme and to set prices. “The design of such a scheme is complicated, but once politics are included, it becomes a minefield,” says Jeff Gazzard, director of Greenskies. Since political acceptance is required at a national level, anti-trading groups are expected to lobby national governments to delay the scheme, he adds. Greenskies’ estimates that, based on 38 million passengers annually, British Airways would have to pay around 1 million ($1.2 million) to purchase the additional carbon credits it would require, which would translate into an additional 1 per ticket, one-sixth of an EC estimate of 6/ticket.
Giovanni Bisignani, director general of the International Air Transport Association, has also been critical of the proposed scheme: “Member states of the International Civil Aviation Organisation, including all EU members, are committed to deciding a course of action on aviation emissions in 2007. A European solution is no solution at all. Unilateral regional efforts will only distract from this process,” he says.
JUSTIN WASTNAGE/LONDON
Source: Flight International
