Airlines have hit out at the decision of the European Parliament to include aviation in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).
Under the new directive, all flights in, to or from the EU area will be included in the ETS from 2012.
The rule was approved by the European Parliament on Tuesday (July 8) by 640 votes to 30.
But the measure has been slammed by three leading aviation groups, the Association of European Airlines (AEA), the International
Air Transport Association (IATA) and the European Regions Airline Association (ERA).
The new rule will apply to all airlines, regardless of their nationality.
The ETS aims to cap CO2 emissions from various industries. In aviation the aim is to cap them in 2012 at 95% of their average level between 2004-2006.
This will be reduced to 95% in 2013.
Under the scheme, carriers will receive 85% of their emission allowance free. The European Commission plans to auction the remaining 15% with airlines which use less than their quota able to sell to those which use more.
The EC, which welcomed the MEPs' vote, said the scheme would add "up to €9 to an average flight by 2020."
The Parliament heard that while aviation currently accounted for 3% of EU greenhouse gas emissions, this has increased by 87% since 1990.
On current trends, aviation emissions in Europe would more than double by 2020.
Stavros Dimas, the EC environment commissioner, said: "Greenhouse gas emissions from international air transport are increasing faster than from any other sector in the EU, and this growth threatens to undermine our overall progress in cutting emissions.
"This agreement will enable the aviation sector to make a fair contribution to Europe's climate change targets as many other sectors are already doing."
But IATA severely criticised the MEPs' decision.
Giovanni Bisignani, its director general and ceo, said: "It's absolutely the wrong answer to the very serious issue of environment.
"We support emissions trading, but not this decision. Europe has taken the wrong approach, with the wrong conditions at the wrong time."
He said IATA had its own four-point strategy to tackle climate change which aimed to cut carbon emissions by 25% by 2020.
He added: "Europe's tunnel-vision focus on a unilateral, punitive and illegal ETS may help some government budgets, but it will do little if anything to improve environmental performance. It's time for Europe to re-focus."
Ulrich Schulte-Strathaus, the AEA's secretary general said the decision "could have consequences far beyond the blinkered vision of the legislators."
He added: "ETS is supposed to be an environmental measure, by setting an upper limit to total emissions. Instead it has been turned into a multi-billion Euro cash dispenser for national exchequers."
The ERA estimated the measure would cost the European airlines €7bn in its first two years, rising to €90bn by 2022.
Mike Ambrose, its director general said: "This legislation will impose massive additional costs on a transport industry that already has to bear unprecedented fuel costs.
"Even if the legislation's questionable environmental benefits are ignored, it is a mark of failure of the legislative process that this legislation has been adopted without a thorough assessment of its economic and social impact: this is not responsible law-making.
"That this legislation has been adopted without meaningful assessment of the jobs that will be put at risk and the communities that will be denied international access is inexcusable: that neither the Parliament nor the Council seem to care is indefensible."