Brussels, 08/11/2011 (Agence Europe) - Everyone is behind the European legislation bringing civil aviation into the EU CO2 emissions trading scheme (EU ETS). The European Parliament (EP) environment committee had no qualms about its support, in Brussels on 8 November, in the face of the attacks on the EU ETS directive and expressed its full support for the firmness shown by Climate Action Commissioner Connie Hedegaard (see EUROPE 10488). Twenty days before the UN climate conference in Durban (COP 17, 28 November-9 December), the committee was concerned rather with the strategy to be adopted by the EU in the international talks and the results that might be expected from the conference, the major challenge for which is already known to be a second commitment period for the Kyoto Protocol after 2012.
Hedegaard defended the legality of the ETS directive and the over-riding need to include aviation, describing as “nothing really new” and “weak” the arguments raised by non-EU countries who challenge the legality of the European legislation and who include the signatories of the recent ICAO statement, led by the United States and China (see above-mentioned EUROPE 10488). Jo Leinen (S&D, Germany), who chairs the committee, said that the law recently passed by the US House of Representatives, absolving US airlines of their obligation to pay for a proportion of the quotas allocated them from 2012 for their transatlantic flights, was “arrogant and ignorant, because we expect others to abide by our laws just as we abide by theirs” (see EUROPE 10485).
For COP 17, several left-wing MEPs, including Kriton Arsenis (S&D, Germany) and Bairbre De Brun (GUE/NGK, UK) argued for the EU to agree to a second Kyoto commitment period, even if other industrialised countries, such as the United States and Japan, oppose it. This is a position which Hedegaard feels would be a “serious error”, and one which would scupper efforts to achieve higher emissions reductions. She prefers the middle way advocated by the European Council which aims for a road map and a clear timetable for the negotiations of a comprehensive, legally binding agreement. All - MEPs and commissioner - called for progress to be made in Durban on funding aid for developing countries, given that $100 billion per year will have to be found from 2020. Leinen said that the EU should, as a matter of its own economic interest, seek more than a 20% reduction in its emissions by 2020, the position advocated in the draft resolution to be put to the plenary session next week. (AN/transl.rt)