EU Parliament to Tighten Airline Emissions Rules
Date: 09-Nov-07
Country: BELGIUM
Author: Jeff Mason
Peter Liese, the German conservative deputy steering the bill through the European Union assembly, said lawmakers would vote to add government aircraft to the scheme and increase the number of carbon permits airlines must pay for upfront.
"We will send a very clear signal next week to make the proposal more ambitious," Liese told Reuters in an interview on Thursday, comparing the bill to the original proposal from the executive European Commission.
"It is quite clear that parliament will not adopt anything that is going to weaken the Commission proposal. It is going in the direction of strengthening."
The trading scheme is the EU's key instrument to fight global warming. It sets limits on the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) that industry may emit. Companies buy or sell permits based on whether they overshoot or undershoot their targets.
Airlines are not currently included, however, and the United States and other countries have fought against their addition.
The parliament will debate the airlines bill on Monday and hold a first-reading vote on Tuesday in Strasbourg, France. The draft legislation must be approved by parliament and EU governments before it can become law. Liese said governments appeared to favour less stringent rules than the assembly.
ONE START DATE
The executive European Commission originally proposed having intra-EU flights join the scheme in 2011 and all international flights from 2012.
Political groups in the parliament, however, agreed that one start date was better and would vote for either 2010 -- supported by the environment committee -- or 2011, Liese said.
"All MEPS agree that we don't want a split. We want one starting date for all flights," he said.
Currently companies get most of the permits upfront for free from governments, though that may change in the third phase of the scheme starting in 2013.
Liese said the parliament will seek to have airlines buy at least 25 percent of the emissions permits they get when first entering the system, increasing that percentage of "auctioning" to match the highest level set for other sectors from 2013.
Some lawmakers were seeking an even higher percentage, but 25 percent was the most likely to get consensus, he said.
Lawmakers would also tighten the cap on how much emissions airlines would be allowed to emit, he said, though he could not predict the outcome of that vote because it was still close.
Most likely airline emissions would be capped at 90 percent of the average of emissions in 2004-2006, he said, tighter than the Commission's proposal for 100 percent from that base period.
Proposals to cap at 50 or 75 percent were unrealistic and would not get support. A proposal to shift the base years back to 2005-2007 would also likely fail, he said.
(Editing by James Jukwey)
