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Airlines Call for Single Emissions Standard
June 4, 2013 Airlines Call for Single Emissions Standard The International Air Transport Association, which represents 85 percent of the world’s airline traffic, has adopted a resolution calling for a single, industry-wide market-based measure to manage and offset emissions. The IATA yesterday agreed to the Implementation of the Aviation Carbon-Neutral Growth CNG2020 Strategy resolution at its 69th general meeting in Cape Town, South Africa. State-owned Chinese and Indian airlines voted against the resolution. The principles agreed to by the industry group, which apply to emissions growth post-2020, are designed to give governments a foundation for negotiation after United Nations talks failed to resolve a stand-off over carbon emissions between the European Union and a broad swath of other countries, Reuters reports. The European Commission suspended its carbon emissions laws on flights taking off or landing from EU member states after the UN’s International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) agreed to consider a global plan to cut airline emissions. The single market-based measure will be critical in the short term as a gap-filler until technology, operations and infrastructure solutions mature, the IATA says. The group has called for governments to approve a market-based measure designed to deliver real emissions reductions, not revenue generation. Last month, a group of high-level aviation industry representatives from 17 countries began working with the ICAO to develop a plan to curb the aviation sector’s growing greenhouse gas emissions by the ICAO’s General Assembly in September. The group was reportedly considering three options at the time: a mandatory offsetting program, mandatory offsetting that would raise revenue to fund joint measures to address climate change and a global emissions trading scheme along the lines of the European Union’s carbon market. The industry group also has agreed to global targets, including improving fuel efficiency by 1.5 percent annually to 2020, capping net emissions and cutting emissions in half by 2050 compared to a 2005 baseline. Continue reading
Airline Industry Carbon Proposal May Help Save U.N. Deal
By Valerie Volcovici WASHINGTON | Mon Jun 3, 2013 7:19pm EDT (Reuters) – A proposal agreed to this week by major airlines could rescue U.N. efforts for a deal to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the aviation sector, but the industry still needs to lean on governments for the plan to move ahead, industry observers said. Following its annual meeting in South Africa on Monday, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) said it will ask governments to create a system through which airlines would offset any increase in emissions after 2020 by buying carbon credits from projects that reduce emissions in other sectors. The proposal is meant to give governments that are parties to the United Nations ‘ International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) a blueprint for a global agreement. It is also a move to prevent the European Union from applying a law that would force airlines to pay for each ton of carbon dioxide they emit on flights to and from EU airports through Europe’s emissions-trading scheme. Implementation of the law was postponed in 2012 after a global outcry. Under IATA’s proposed offsetting system, either air carriers or countries would have to purchase credits to cover each ton of carbon emitted over a set baseline. “The worldwide airline industry sent a strong message that it is moving forward with its commitments and has offered governments a proposed way forward,” said Nancy Young, vice president for environmental affairs for the lobby group Airlines for America, whose members also belong to IATA. The airlines who agreed to the proposal represent about 85 percent of global commercial air traffic. Some environmentalists doubted that governments will be ready to ink a deal in time for ICAO’s triennial general assembly in Montreal, which runs from September 24 to October 4. “The question is whether it’s just a resolution or will IATA now put their undoubted muscle behind wavering governments, starting with the United States,” said Bill Hemmings, aviation manager at Brussels-based group Transport and Environment. Officials from 17 countries tapped to work on the global agreement have been bogged down by issues such as whether states or airlines would be pay for emissions, and whether less-developed countries should have different goals. Annie Petsonk, international council for the Environmental Defense Fund, said her organization does not support all elements of the IATA resolution but the plan sends a strong signal to feet-dragging governments. “We may not agree with every ingredient to bake into this cake but we agree that it’s time to bake the cake,” she said. “The fact that the industry is saying ‘this can be done this September’ … really puts the spotlight on whether governments will get into the kitchen and get it done.” Some green groups totally rejected IATA’s approach, arguing that it will not lead to real emission reductions. “Only a cap-and-trade scheme with a stringent cap and a limit on the use of offsets will create sufficient incentives for essential emission reductions,” said Eva Filzmoser, director of Carbon Market Watch, a watchdog group. (Reporting by Valerie Volcovici; editing by Andrew Hay) Continue reading
Airlines Seek Carbon Market to Curb Post-2020 Pollution
By Kari Lundgren & Chris Jasper – Jun 3, 2013 Airlines backed a call for an emissions market to offset growth in their greenhouse gases after 2020, a step that could spur international talks on tackling pollution from the industry. International Air Transport Association members adopted today at their annual general meeting in Cape Town a resolution in favor of a market-based mechanism to help address airlines’ emissions. IATA produced the proposal before a September gathering of the United Nations’ aviation panel that will consider the industry’s tools to fight climate change. 18:14 June 3 (Bloomberg) — International Air Transport Association Chief Executive Officer Tony Tyler talks about profitability, international airline consolidation and environmental awareness. He speaks with Bloomberg’s Kari Lundgren in Cape Town. (Source: Bloomberg) It is “vitally important” to send a strong message that “we are an industry determined to address environmental performance, determined to continue to show leadership and determined to play our part in shaping a fair and equitable solution to this global problem,” Willie Walsh, chief executive officer of British Airways parent International Consolidated Airlines Group SA (IAG) , said in a statement today. The IATA resolution comes as representatives of governments in the UN’s International Civil Aviation Organization try to iron out a deal to reduce air industry pollution. Countries from Russia and China to the U.S. are seeking a global pact after protesting the inclusion of foreign flights in the European Union’s emissions-trading system last year. The bloc deferred the carbon curbs to help the ICAO talks. Significant Contribution “This is unprecedented for the airline industry to take such a powerful step,” said Dirk Forrister, president of the International Emissions Trading Association in Geneva. “It’s encouraging that carbon offsets are the central cost savings mechanism that they are using to meet climate goals at the lowest cost.” Under the EU’s carbon cap-and-trade system, designed to meet market-based emissions targets, tradable permits are allocated to polluters that must surrender enough of them to cover their emissions or pay a fine. Verified emissions reported by airlines in the EU were almost 84 million tons in 2012, or about 4 percent of the total in the bloc’s program, the European Commission said on May 16. IATA’s resolution is a “very strong message” that the industry seems ready to support a single global market-based mechanism, EU Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard said in an e-mailed statement today. “Time for governments to match this and deliver in ICAO,” she said. The post-2020 program would set the market’s emissions baseline at the average of greenhouse-gas output in the three years through 2020, IATA said. Overwhelming Majority The resolution was backed by an “overwhelming” majority of airline executives voting at the meeting, according to IATA Chairman and Qantas Airways Ltd. CEO Alan Joyce. Air India Ltd. and Air China Ltd. both voiced concerns. Market-based measures for airlines should be considered only as a secondary tool and as a part of a broader package of measures to cut greenhouse gases, Air India Chairman Nandan Rohit said. They shouldn’t be implemented unilaterally and “should only be applied within the national boundaries of a state and limited to the national carriers,” he said at the meeting today. “If a state decides to implement MBM on air carriers of third states there should be a bilateral agreement in place.” Welcome Departure The IATA proposal means that it only endorses a global program instead of a patchwork of national policy measures, while maintaining opposition to the EU emissions trading system, Brussels-based lobby group Transport & Environment said in an e-mailed statement today. “Today’s IATA resolution represents a welcome departure from their historical position that better air traffic control, better planes and biofuels alone can solve the problem,” said Bill Hemmings, aviation manager at Transport & Environment. “However, it kicks the ball in the long grass, until after 2020, and sets out a string of unworkable conditions.” EU carbon permits for delivery in December closed 0.8 percent lower at 3.92 euros a metric ton on the ICE Futures Europe exchange in London . The cost of UN certified emission reductions for December was unchanged at 41 euro cents a ton. “The biggest implication of this is it makes it more likely that international aviation will not come back into the EU ETS,” Trevor Sikorski , an analyst at Energy Aspects Ltd. in London, said by e-mail. “It seems very difficult for the European Commission to make a case for this, particularly if something similar comes out of ICAO this year.” Montreal-based IATA represents 240 airlines worldwide, comprising 84 percent of global air traffic. Members include Deutsche Lufthansa AG, British Airways, Singapore Airlines Ltd. (SIA) and Delta Air Lines Inc. To contact the reporters on this story: Kari Lundgren in London at klundgren2@bloomberg.net ; Christopher Jasper in London at cjasper@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: Lars Paulsson at lpaulsson@bloomberg.net Continue reading
