Does the EU’s emissions trading scheme for airlines have any future after the plan to charge non-EU airlines was postponed for a year? Stanley Slaughter reports
The decision this week by the EU to suspend charges for carbon emissions by airlines flying in or out of Europe under its controversial emissions trading system (ETS) has all the makings of a dog’s dinner. The future of any attempt to curb CO2 emissions from civil aircraft is now in the hands of an organisation which has never shown much enthusiasm for the idea and also includes a handful of members who seem adamantly opposed to any such scheme.
When the EU decided unilaterally to include aviation in its existing ETS, it was in the aftermath of a decision in 2004 by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) not to proceed with a global scheme. Basically the world body for aviation had washed its hands of any attempt to try and curb the fast-growing level of carbon emissions from aircraft.
The EU - far keener on green schemes than many other organisations - was left with the unwelcome choice of abandoning its cherished project or going it alone. The decision to pursue the latter was fraught with danger and attracted immediate criticism. Countries such as the US, Russia, China and India vocally and robustly made clear from the very start they would never support such a unilateral scheme. US lawmakers have passed legislation making it illegal for its carriers to pay while Russia and China darkly threatened retaliation and the unwelcome prospect of “trade wars”.
The best that could be said for a scheme that looked holed under the water from the off was that it might galvanise the ICAO into doing something. There is a limited reason to believe that this ploy might have worked.
There has been some softening of the attitude of ICAO to the concept of a global scheme to curb emissions, although this would be unlikely to be the same as the EU version. Originally 26 non-EU nations - dubbed the “coalition of the unwilling” - attended conferences in the past year to discuss what to do about the EU scheme with 16 attending the last meeting in Washington in July.
But this in itself has been progress, as Jonathon Counsell, British Airways’ head of environment (speaking at a conference in September in London on A New Aviation Policy for the UK organised by the Waterfront Conference Company), said that ICAO has taken more action over carbon emissions in the last 12 months than it did between 1997 and 2011. So, in this sense, the EU has succeeded in moving the issue significantly up the international agenda.
But what has ICAO actually done? Nothing, really. At the meeting of its council last Friday (November 9) all it did was to agree to look at ways of cutting emissions. No decision was made on how this should be done although carbon trading was suggested. More crucially, there seems to be no time line, no deadline for reports, let alone a decision. In other words it has made no more than a few vague, palliative noises.
The fact that these less than convincing noises were enough to persuade the EU to suspend the scheme for flights in and out of the EU shows the quandary that Europe officials have found themselves in. The crunch was coming in April 2013 when the EU was due to collect permits from airlines for their carbon emissions. But this will still apply to flights within the EU.
Nobody doubts the sincerity of Connie Hedegard, the EU’s climate commissioner, when she says she wants a global scheme but there are concerns over the reality of her optimism in hailing the ICAO’s “action” last week as “very good news”.
Bill Hemmings, programme manager for aviation for the green pressure group Transport and Environment, said the ICAO’s council meeting was its “last chance” to do something about carbon emissions. He believes there is still some hope that the organisation will have some proposals in place for its next council meeting in March which could be approved at its meeting in September. But this would need a “much accelerated work plan”.
There is also, as Hemmings points out, the problem of the US “which sees no reason for global action” and has made a practice of “blocking even the smallest progress towards multilateral solutions”. Nearer home, there are airlines, such as Lufthansa and Ryanair, which also oppose the ETS.
There are few grounds for optimism here. Even the implementation of ETS on flights within the EU is in doubt - for there is a real prospect that European airlines which now back the EU will turn against it. This could happen if they feel there are at a competitive disadvantage against non-EU carriers. The whole situation looks like a mess.
A solution could emerge next year which satisfies all but it would not be wise to bet on it.