In a document addressed to the Council of the European Union on Wednesday 13 May, the European Commission proposes to use the years 2021, 2022 and 2023 as the reference years for calculating airlines’ CO2 offsetting requirements for the period 2021-2023 under the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA).
By 30 June next, the European Union, by decision of the EU Council, must notify the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) of the option it has chosen to calculate airlines’ offsetting requirements during the pilot phase of CORSIA, i.e. between 2021 and 2023.
Under CORSIA, it is foreseen that, in order to calculate the amount of CO2 to be offset by an airline, its annual emissions will be multiplied by the growth rate of emissions from the entire aviation sector, which is itself defined in relation to a reference emission level, i.e. the average of the aviation sector’s emission levels in the years 2019 and 2020.
States wishing to participate in the pilot phase of CORSIA thus have two options: (1) apply this growth rate to emissions in the year 2020 for each year of the pilot phase; (2) apply this growth rate to emissions in the years 2021, 2022 and 2023, respectively, for each year of the pilot phase.
In the document addressed to the EU Council, the Commission suggests the second option.
It stresses that this should “lead to greater environmental effectiveness”, as emissions from international aviation are expected to be higher in these three years than in 2020, when emissions from this sector will be exceptionally lower due to the significant impact of Covid-19 on air traffic.
It is important to make it clear that this Commission proposal does not, therefore, deal with the reference emission level, which is currently the subject of intense discussion.
According to the Climate Home News website, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) would indeed lobby ICAO to base the reference level only on 2019 emissions rather than the average of 2019 and 2020 emissions.
Indeed, IATA estimates that the 2019-2020 baseline will be lower than expected due to Covid, which it believes will put airlines at risk by forcing them to purchase more offsetting. IATA would therefore like this reference threshold to be raised, basing it solely on the year 2019.
As a reminder, the Commission has yet to present a report to Parliament and the EU Council in order to assess, among other things, the environmental ambition of CORSIA and how it can be implemented in Union law. Thereafter, it is foreseen that the instrument will be implemented from the start of its pilot phase on 1 January 2021 by means of an amendment to the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) Directive.
On Monday 11 May, during a debate with the European Commissioner for Transport, Adina Vălean, some MEPs expressed their fears that the implementation of CORSIA could weaken the ETS (see EUROPE 12484/12).
See Commission document: https://bit.ly/3bxf7K6 (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)