Europe Reaffirms its Commitment to Cut Aviation Emissions
October 2, 2007 // Published as a news service by IHS
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The European Union (EU) continued to reaffirm its controversial plan to include airlines in its strategy for reducing carbon dioxide emissions, even though the 36th Assembly of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) ended on Sep. 28 without clear agreement on a way forward to reduce such emissions from international aviation.
EU officials were critical of the ICAO's failure to enact stricter CO2 emission standards at the end of the talks in Montreal. "We strongly believe that it would be best if the international community could reach an effective mechanism on tackling aviation emissions. We are disappointed by the outcome and believe ICAO has abdicated the leadership role given to it in the Kyoto Protocol. That is a very great failing that should concern us all," said Luis Fonseca de Almeida, EU president and director general of Portugal's civil aviation authority.
Jacques Barrot, EU transport commissioner, said, "ICAO has made an important contribution to safer and more secure air transport, but its record on aircraft emissions is simply not good enough. While Europe will continue to support and participate in ICAO work on the environment, we must make more and quicker progress to tackle the urgent problem of climate change."
Stavros Dimas, EU environment commissioner, said, "In order to fight climate change, all sectors must contribute in a fair way, including aviation, whose emissions are increasing very rapidly. It is a great pity that ICAO has not been able to reach an agreement on the way forward. The EU has set up an ambitious and comprehensive emissions trading system and is in the process of agreeing legislation that would extend it to aviation emissions. This process must continue without delay."
At the assembly, a majority of delegates refused to sign up to meaningful targets to reduce aviation emissions. A compromise suggestion to set up an urgent high-level ICAO process to fix such emission targets and provide input to the U.N. negotiations on a successor to the Kyoto Protocol was watered down and will only look at "possible aspiration goals."
A key point for the EU was to ensure that market-based measures, such as those in its emissions trading scheme, can be used in efforts to manage aviation's impact on the climate. Although many delegates pushed for individual states to have veto rights over other countries' use of such schemes, there was not global consensus on this point. By registering a formal reservation on this particular point, the EU made it clear that it will not feel bound by this part of the conclusions.
More information
Further information is available on the EU web page on Aviation and climate change. See also MEMO/06/506, Questions and answers on aviation and climate change.
Source: European Commission.