On Friday 13 March, the NGO Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), which was concerned that the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Council may be put under pressure by airlines to weaken the CORSIA system, appealed to the agency not to use COVID-19 as a pretext for diluting the global market-based measure but, in the interests of the climate, to listen instead to its technical advisers (see EUROPE 12434/24).
A new study carried out by the NGO supports this request: the study reports that the number of credits available to airlines under CORSIA - an offsetting system to tackle emissions from global aviation - will be 2.5 to 3.5 times the number they need for the first three years of the programme.
EDF's international advisor, Annie Petsonk, said in a statement that “standing up for CORSIA with integrity will result in an ample supply of post-2016 credits available to airlines, even considering the most pronounced effects of the coronavirus”.
In her view, “Coronavirus/COVID-19 is a global crisis that has hit public health, and the world’s airlines are facing real economic and structural threats. But UN climate action is not one of them”.
And that is because “there will be plenty of high-quality credits available to help airlines meet their carbon limits in CORSIA’s initial years”. And “because CORSIA includes provisions, thanks to ICAO foresight, that give airlines flexibility to deal with the COVID-19 crisis without sacrificing climate protection”. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)