A European emissions trading scheme for airlines is a non-starter, according to the International Air Transport Association, which threatens the scheme will be mired in legal challenges.
IATA chief executive Giovanni Bisignani said at the weekend: “Regional trading schemes will not work – 170 countries will challenge Europe.”
MEPs last week approved a European Commission proposal to bring airlines within the EC’s existing emissions trading scheme from 2011. European-based carriers would join the cap-and-trade scheme in the first year and others be incorporated in 2012. Airlines would have limits set on their carbon dioxide emissions and buy credits from other companies to exceed these.
But airlines outside Europe, particularly in the US, oppose the proposal and plan legal challenges. The US government has warned it will spark a trade dispute.
The airlines and IATA argue for a global scheme to be developed by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO). However, ICAO was charged with developing such a scheme under the international Kyoto Protocol on climate change in 1997 and has failed to do so. The most recent ICAO meeting on the issue last month made little progress.
EC ministers decided to press ahead with a limited scheme in light of ICAO’s failure, with the scheme expected to provide a model for subsequent global carbon trading.
Critics of emissions trading point out there is no evidence such a scheme will reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The first year of the European scheme, launched in 2005, produced no cut in emissions and saw the market price of carbon collapse.
United Nations scientists have warned the world has 10 years to begin making substantial cuts in CO2 emissions or it will be too late to keep warming this century to 2C.
The secretary-general of the UN World Tourism Organisation, Francesco Frangialli, told delegates at World Travel Market last week: “A rise beyond 2C will threaten the existence of our industry. We cannot delay.”