This decision, which comes in the wake of mounting international pressure by virtually all of the EU’s major trading partners, has very firmly placed the task of finding an effective mechanism to manage airlines’ CO2 emissions in the hands of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) – which is where, AEA has consistently argued, it should have been all along. The European Commission has made it clear that, if progress within ICAO is not forthcoming, its aviation ETS scheme will be reactivated.
“We are pleased that the Commission has listened to the airlines’ point of view. As international tensions over the issue have escalated, European airlines have been facing the very real prospect of discrimination and retaliation in our most important global markets. Indeed, some AEA members have already encountered operational obstacles with regard to certain countries” said Athar Husain Khan, acting Secretary General of AEA.
“European airlines will still be required to buy ETS credits for their flights within the EU”, reminded Mr Husain Khan. “Since these are such a tiny proportion of worldwide CO2, it shows the inability of a purely regional scheme to have a meaningful impact on what is a global issue”.
AEA hopes that the move will stimulate action within the notoriously slow-moving ICAO, which must come up with concrete progress towards a global approach by its General Assembly in November 2013. “In their opposition to EU ETS, countries such as the USA, Russia, China and India have repeatedly stated that the issue should be dealt with in ICAO. Now they have the chance to show that they mean it”, said Athar Husain Khan.
For the duration of this moratorium, the continued application of ETS to intra-EU flights means that passengers on these flights will effectively be taxed, purportedly for environmental reasons, whereas their counterparts in the rest of the world are not. This is clearly an unsatisfactory situation in anything but the shortest term. This Commission decision has created a breathing space, but it is as important as ever that a global approach is formulated and implemented with a minimum of delay.
