Aviation emissions trading plans under fire

Tyndall Centre report claims current plans to include airlines in Europe's carbon trading scheme will do little to curb emissions

MEP's will today be warned that plans to incorporate aviation into the European emissions trading scheme will fail to deliver the required reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by a major new report from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research.

The EU currently plans to include aviation in the ETS from 2011 for intra-EU flights, with all flights departing from or arriving in the EU included from 2012, but the new report argues that the proposals are too modest and will fail to have a significant impact on emissions.

The Tyndall Centre's research found that the proposed allocation of carbon permits or credits to airlines will result in a price of less than 50 per tonne carbon, resulting in little impact on ticket prices and therefore limited impact on demand and emissions growth.

It argued that even if the EU allocated far fewer permits resulting in a carbon price of 300 per tonne there would still only be a moderate increase in ticket prices.

Dr. Kevin Anderson, Director of the Tyndall Centre's Energy Programme, said that the proposals needed to be "significantly strengthened" if they are to curb emissions and incentivise airlines to invest more heavily in more efficient aircraft technologies.
The report recommends that the EU should seek to auction rather than allocate carbon credits in order to increase the cost of carbon emissions, bring forward plans to implement the scheme, and improve air traffic control co-operation across Europe to limit flight times and emissions.

Richard Dyer, aviation campaigner at Friends of the Earth, which commissioned the report, added that further efforts outside the ETS were also required to limit the airline industry's impact on climate change. "This should include VAT on air tickets, a tax on aviation fuel and opposition to new runways," he said. "The UK Government must also strengthen its plans for a new climate change law to include Britain's share of international aviation emissions."

The report's findings will be discussed today at a meeting of MEP's in Strasbourg hosted by Lib Dem MEP Chris Davies, a member of the European Parliament's Environment Committee. He signaled his support for the Tyndall Centre's recommendations, arguing that "the Commission's plans to bring aviation into the Emissions Trading Scheme hardly scratch the surface of the problem" and urging the European Parliament to "now amend the proposal to make it more effective".

However, any moves to tighten the emissions trading scheme are likely to be fiercely opposed by the the airline industry, which is already fiercely divided over the effectiveness of the EU proposals.

While some European airlines have declared tentative support for joining the scheme others have voiced opposition with Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary threatening to boycott the scheme. US airlines meanwhile have also pledged to fight any attempts to bring flights between Europe and the US into the scheme arguing that they are beyond the EU's jurisdiction.