"Emissions pain in store for European aviation"

Tuesday, April 4, 2007

Emissions pain in store for aviation
Trading may include tough industry-specific measures
By Aimée Turner
Flight International


The German Christian Democrat MEP appointed to steer a European Commission
proposal to include aviation in Europe's emissions trading scheme says the
European Parliament will insist on a much tougher regime.

Speaking in Brussels at a conference on aviation and climate change, Peter
Liese, the new rapporteur for the parliament's environment committee, said
his report will be based on the parliament's resolution last July, which
demanded that airlines face their own special environmental penalties in an
effort to tackle aviation's contribution to global warming.

These include an airlines-only carbon dioxide emissions trading scheme and
similar penalties to tackle non-carbon greenhouse gas emissions, together
with a new tax regime on aviation fuel and airline tickets. As such, the
parliament's vision of an industry-specific, polluter-pays scheme goes much
further than the current EC proposals.

Liese said the parliament would not completely oppose the EC proposal to
include aviation in a general emissions trading scheme, but would probably
push for its "fall-back option" of certain conditions. These include a cap
on the number of emission credits airlines are permitted to buy from the
market, and a requirement to make a proportion of the necessary emissions
reductions without trading, before being allowed to buy permits. 

He added that although some MEPs supported full auctioning, he would not
support this, favouring instead a mix of auctioning and benchmarking, where
each operator would be allocated allowances based on its share of overall
passenger and cargo traffic. 

He added that the EC proposal for different implementation dates for intra-
and extra-European Union flights would not be supported at parliament level.
"I don't know anyone in the European Parliament who would agree to this," he
said, adding that anti-US sentiment over this issue would be resolved by a
change of US administration as it "no longer represents the view of the
majority of public opinion on climate change in the USA". He added: "We will
not easily fold just because the Bush administration doesn't like it." 

Kurt Edwards of the US Federal Aviation Administration justified the US
position: "We're not completely evil. We do have an approach, even if it is
not in Kyoto," adding that US carriers already pay fuel taxes.

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