Air carriers warn a solution 'must be found' to the EU's emissions trading scheme
February 9, 2012
As countries around the world line up against the EU’s emissions trading scheme (ETS), the air sector was warned yesterday that a solution had to be found “to avoid a real crisis”.
At Aviation Carbon 2012, in London, lawyer Andrew Waite told more than 300 delegates from 62 countries that he believed a political solution was the only answer to what had been described as a “stalemate scenario”.
The European scheme legally requires all flights landing at any EU airport to take part in an emissions trading system to offset the carbon produced by its journey.
Some countries, notably the US, say the scheme breaks international law and violates environmental treaties – claims recently refuted in a ruling by the European Court of Justice.
Waite told the conference: “The European court judgement pushed the boundaries of international law.
The court decided it wanted to support the scheme and afterwards figured out arguments that would support it.”
He said this had resulted in a legal standoff and neither the EC or opposing countries would back down.
The US has legislation on the way to ban its carriers from complying and this week IFW reported that China had forbidden its carriers to take part.
More than 25 protesting countries, including the US, Canada, the UAE, Japan, Singapore and Thailand, are to meet in Moscow in two weeks to map out more retaliatory measures to the ETS, delegates were told.
Furthermore, British Airways Head of Environment Jonathon Counsell told the conference the UK flag-carrier would demand exemption from the scheme on any routes flown by a foreign airline forbidden by its government from compliance with the ETS.
Waite said: “So a political solution is essential, and I think it has to come within the next 12 months if we are to avoid a real crisis.”
He said everyone in the industry, including the EC itself, seemed to agree that a global solution to reducing aircraft emissions was preferable to a mixture of regional schemes.
“The problem has been that the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) has been very slow in coming up with a proposal,” he said.
“Possibly one positive feature of the EU scheme is that it seems to have goaded ICAO to action, and indeed its Secretary General has promised to come up with a proposal by the end of 2012.
“But whether that will be something that everybody will sign up to remains to be seen.”
Courtesy of IFW
