Brussels, 07/10/2013 (Agence Europe) - Making the best of a bad situation... A formal agreement was reached in the evening of 4 October at the ICAO for developing a global market instrument on reducing CO2 emissions from civil aviation. This instrument will be finalised in 2016, so that it can enter into force by 2020, and although it will put an end to the provisional regional systems such as the EU's Emissions Trading System (ETS), the European Commission has welcomed the decision made in this connection (see EUROPE 10936). Nonetheless, on Monday 7 October, it announced that it intended to analyse it so that it would be able to develop the appropriate EU legislative response and would subsequently put forward a proposal in this sense before the end of the year.
Isaac Valero-Ladron, spokesman for Connie Hedegaard, the European Commissioner for Climate Action stated that, “the European Commission has always said that it was prepared to amend its legislation if the ICAO managed to obtain a positive result. This is the case. The Commission, together with the Parliament and Council will therefore assess the situation and envisages the following steps. I cannot say at this stage whether there will be new or revised legislation. We need to analyse and decide what steps ought to be followed. Before the end of the year, there will be a proposal and whatever happens, a decision will be made” (our translation).
Last April, EU regulation was granted a temporary exemption of a year for ETS on intercontinental flights expiring at the end of the year and a decision is expected to be taken soon.
On Friday evening, as soon as the compromise was reached by the ICAO General Assembly, Hedegaard put particular emphasis on the progress that this represented in itself: an agreement for tackling at an international level, emissions from the sector in a backdrop to the fight against climate change; progress she puts down to the EU, given that it was the refusal by non-EU countries to pay 15% of their emissions under the ETS directive that had helped international negotiations to move forward.
Commissioner Hedegaard announced the EU's decision on the future of the ETS and explained that, “After so many years of talks, ICAO has finally agreed to the first-ever global deal to curb aviation emissions. If it hadn't been for the EU's hard work and determination, we wouldn't have got this decision today to create a global market-based measure. What matters to us is that the aviation sector also contributes to our efforts to reduce emissions. While we would have liked more countries to accept our regional scheme, progress was made overall” (our translation).
Peter Liese MEP (EPP, Germany), rapporteur on the dossier thinks that the agreement is disappointing and the text had been watered down. He also explained that, “if and how it comes to an agreement in 2020, is in the stars. Unfortunately, we have no guarantee that the system will be introduced in 2020 and that the benefit to the environment is substantial. There are too many ifs and buts. Nevertheless, this is a first step, which was achieved only by the pressure of the EU. Alone, ICAO would not have made it so far, because of the industry domination of the countries' positions. Therefore the EU has to keep the pressure high”. He also promised to scrutinise the text and its possible impact and according to him, the European Parliament would not agree to exclusively intra-European flights being covered up until 2020 because “the inclusion of all flights taking off and landing in Europe, for the part that they travel in European airspace is indispensable. This is a matter of fairness against European airlines and their competitive situation and the environment”. If the European Parliament does not manage to reach an agreement with the Council by April on a new legislative text, it will be the ETS, as initially planned, that will apply to all intra-European flights taking off or landing in the EU, warned the MEP.
The WWF deplored the fact that the ICAO had missed an opportunity offered to it to immediately begin emissions reductions from the civil aviation sector and therefore help rectify the disparity between the goals of 2020 and the offers on the table in international climate negotiations. Samantha Smith from the Global Climate & Energy Initiative said that, “the science is clearer than ever - 2020 is too late”. The NGO also pointed out that whole world had waited 16 years for the ICAO to prove that it was seriously committed to emissions reduction but believes that what they got seemed a very small return for that effort. (AN/transl.fl)