The aviation industry faces two weeks of “delicate discussions” over a proposed plan for a global Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), according to the boss of airline association IATA.
The discussion of a worldwide ETS is set to be the “most contentious issue” at the ICAO Assembly meeting which is due to start in Montreal on Tuesday (September 24).
Earlier this month, ICAO agreed to create a global airline emissions scheme, which will be implemented from 2020, with the European Union restricting the scope of its own ETS until then.
But this deal has to be approved at ICAO’s meeting which will run until October 4. ICAO, which is part of the United Nations, is composed of representatives from 191 countries worldwide and meets every three years.
IATA’s CEO Tony Tyler (pictured) said: “Last year one regional scheme - the extraterritorial application of the EU Emission Trading Scheme - took us to brink of a trade war until cooler heads prevailed.
“The clock is stopped. But that dispute has cast a strong shadow in the run-up to the assembly discussions and we must not let it become a distraction to achieving what could be a truly historic outcome.
“I know first-hand the delicate balance that must be struck. We achieved a consensus among our members to support a global mandatory carbon offsetting scheme to manage aviation’s post-2020 emissions’ growth.”
Tyler added that the aviation industry wanted to achieve “carbon-neutral growth” from 2020 which was a “common goal for both industry and governments”.
“I hope that this will provide inspiration for the delicate discussions that will happen here over the next two weeks,” said Tyler. “Had we focused on the exceptions and difficulties, we would never have achieved agreement.”
The EU’s original proposal to charge all airlines flying to Europe under ETS sparked opposition from the world’s major non-EU nations including the US, Russia, China and India.
But the EU is now willing to dilute ETS by only charging airlines for the miles they cover within EU airspace instead of the entire journey.