The Commission and Member States are working to prevent any risk that CORSIA, the International Civil Aviation Organization's (ICAO) global market measure to tackle CO2 emissions from the aviation sector, will supplant and abolish the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), depriving the EU of autonomy for its future climate ambitions.
This threat is great, since the ICAO Council announced last June that it planned to discuss the exclusivity of CORSIA (Carbon Offset and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation) at the next General Assembly, which opens on 24 September in Montreal, so that this global market measure would be mandatory for all countries to avoid double counting of emissions.
A consensus was reached in the EU Council's ‘Aviation’ Working Group on Friday 13 September that the EU should reserve the right to go beyond CORSIA, while implementing it.
“The text will be proposed to Coreper [editor’s note: permanent representatives to the EU] as an A item, on 18 September”, indicated a source to EUROPE. The EU position for Montreal would then be adopted without debate on the sidelines during the ‘Transport’ Committee meeting on 20 September.
This text is based on an information note from the Commission sent confidentially to the European Parliament and the Member States because its publication before the ICAO Assembly could harm Europe's interests during the negotiations in Montreal.
“The Commission calls on Member States to act in order to be sure that the Assembly Resolution cannot be interpreted as impinging on EU sovereignty during its work on CORSIA implementation and revision of the ETS. We need to ensure a sufficient EU policy space to continue to pursue an ambitious climate policy for aviation in the EU”, said a source close to the Commission. The aim is “to safeguard the EU policy space while preserving as broad as possible support for CORSIA among our international partners”.
CORSIA, whose pilot phase begins in 2021 on a voluntary basis, only provides for the stabilisation of global civil aviation emissions in 2020 through a compensation scheme, with the only obligation being the achievement of carbon-neutral growth by 2020.
“CORSIA prohibits doing more; there must be a reservation for the EU to say it can do more”, MEP Pascal Canfin (Renew Europe, France) told the press on Friday morning, satisfied that the Commission, in its recommendation to the EU Council, is on the same page as Parliament. He noted the reluctance of “Ireland, Italy and France on the EU Council”.
On 4 September, members of the European Parliament's Environment Committee debated CORSIA and ETS, following a letter sent to the Commission in July by Pascal Canfin, Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee, expressing his concerns.
The Director General of DG Transport, Henrik Hololei, had said he “shared the concerns” of MEPs and stressed that the Chicago Convention allows member countries to apply their own regulations. However, he pointed out that the ETS alone will not be able to meet the ever-increasing problem of global air emissions, as its coverage is less extensive than CORSIA. The European Commission will evaluate CORSIA and, when the time comes, will present a report to Parliament and the EU Council to determine the fate of the ETS, as provided for in the ETS Directive.
It should be recalled that the EU’s derogation of the ETS for intercontinental flights applies until 31 December 2023. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang with Mathieu Bion)