Airline emissions in Europe will increase by 683 million tonnes of CO2 in ten years - the equivalent of the emissions of France and Poland combined - if the EU abandons its own measures to combat aviation CO2 emissions under the ETS in favour of CORSIA, Transport & Environment (T&E) warned on Monday 23 September.
Delivering the results of an independent study on the eve of the opening of the General Assembly of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) in Montreal, the NGO is urging EU Member State governments to resist ICAO, which is about to vote on a resolution to make CORSIA an exclusive market measure at the global level.
The study shows that relying solely on CORSIA would prevent the EU from meeting its commitments under the Paris Agreement and the global economy from reaching zero net emissions by 2050 at the latest. The ETS requires airlines to pay for emissions from all flights in Europe.
“The UN offsetting scheme will allow airlines to go on growing their emissions while paying others for cheap offsets”, says Andrew Murphy, an expert at T&E.
According to the position adopted by the EU Council on 20 September, the EU intends to reserve the right to go beyond CORSIA with its ETS for intra-European flights. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)