US Pressures EU Over Aviation Emissions Trading
Date: 01-Dec-05
Country: BELGIUM
Author: Jeff Mason
The European Commission tabled a recommendation in September that all carriers taking off from an EU airport, regardless of nationality, should be included in the scheme in an effort to curb increasing emissions of gases that cause global warming.
The United States thinks the system should be limited to European carriers, said Sharon Pinkerton, a top official at the US Federal Aviation Administration, after meeting with EU officials this week to discuss the subject.
She said the US questioned both the legality of including foreign carriers in the scheme and the science attached to trading rights to emit carbon dioxide (CO2), the main gas blamed by scientists for global warming.
"We still think that there are very fundamental issues that need to be resolved," she told reporters.
The European Commission said such a move was legal and necessary to tackle global warming.
"We have checked the legality of it and we are confident that we will not have a legal problem," Commission environment spokeswoman Barbara Helfferich said.
"By 2012 aircraft emissions will have increased by 150 percent over the 1990 level. We need to do something about it if we are serious about climate change."
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has criticised the EU proposal, saying it would distract from forming a global answer to the problem of airline emissions through the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).
Pinkerton said the US also favoured an ICAO-led solution.
"I think Europe moving forward with a programme for its own airlines is a good first step," she said.
She declined to speculate on whether the United States would take legal action if the scheme proceeded according to the Commission's proposal. She said the US would look to the authority of the Chicago Convention, which regulates international aviation, if necessary.
She said the aviation industry in the United States was growing at a slower rate than in Europe, adding the United States spent $500 million a year on environmental research and noise mitigation efforts, funded by a fuel tax on domestic flights by US airlines.
The current EU scheme, launched in January, puts a limit on the amount of CO2 that big polluters like power plants can emit.
Companies buy more right to pollute if they overshoot their target or sell them if they come in below the cap.
The Commission's proposal on aviation must still go through the EU legislative process. Officials have said aviation would not enter the scheme until 2008 at the earliest.
