A step forward, but just a step, was taken in Montreal on Wednesday 27 June with endorsement by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) of rules for implementation of the CORSIA system. This global market measure aims to stabilise the sector’s CO2 emissions by 2020 through an offsetting mechanism. The 36 members of the ICAO approved the standards and recommended practices (SARP) for the offsetting system.
Nonetheless, they deferred until “before the end of 2018” the date for finalisation of the detailed rules concerning the eligibility of offsets for air transport emissions and the criteria for biofuel sustainability (see EUROPE 12046), which causes concern for NGOs.
The European Commission, however, hailed this outcome. European Transport Commissioner Violeta Bulc and her colleague for climate action and energy, Miguel Arias Cañete, stressed in a joint statement published on Thursday 28 June: “The agreement sets the rules needed for airlines to monitor and report their emissions from 2019. The rules agreed describe in detail what has to be done, by whom, starting with the collection of information on international aviation CO2 emissions by airlines as of January 2019”.
China and Brazil stuck to their positions, refusing a centralised process for approving eligible offsets, to the benefit of an automatic eligibility of credits from the UN’s clean development mechanism (CDM).
Deploring the fact that no decision had been taken on an essential part of the rules for CORSIA implementation, the NGO Carbon Market Watch warned that a delay of this decision could be dangerous if it means diluting the rules before the next ICAO Council scheduled for September.
“The draft rules as they stand provide a good basis to avoid past mistakes of offsetting systems, where the majority of credits have made little-to-no impact in curtailing pollution levels. A delay of this decision could be dangerous if it means watering down these rules to allow substandard offset projects into the scheme”, warns Kelsey Perlman, from that NGO. She explains that, if no restrictions are applied to the existing CDM credits, the market could be flooded with credits amounting to around 3.3 billion tonnes of CO2, enough to cover the entire demand of CORSIA until 2035. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)