The S&D group’s shadow rapporteur on the review of the aviation component of the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS), Milan Brglez (Slovenia), delivered his amendments to the draft report by Sunčana Glavak MEP (EPP, Croatia) on Wednesday 16 February.
In particular, he proposes to accelerate the abolition of free emission allowances for the sector.
According to the pace planned by the European Commission, 25% of the free allowances should be auctioned in 2024, 50% in 2025, 75% in 2026 and 100% in 2027.
While Ms Glavak advocates for a more sustained pace (33.3% in 2024, 66.6% in 2025 and 100% in 2026), Mr Brglez wants all free allowances to be auctioned starting 1 January 2024.
Link with CORSIA
On international flights, the Socialist MEP suggests that from 1 April 2025, aircraft operators should surrender allowances for emissions from all flights departing from or arriving at an aerodrome in the European Economic Area (EEA) in the previous calendar year.
Currently, flights outside the EEA are not covered by the ETS, as they benefit from a special ‘stop the clock’ derogation pending the implementation of the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA).
In order to ensure that emissions are not charged twice for flights departing from and arriving at an aerodrome located in the EEA (through CORSIA and through the ETS), aircraft operators would be reimbursed for the financial value of the expenditure on credits they had used under CORSIA for non-EU routes.
The method and mechanism for making this reimbursement would be established by the Commission through a delegated act.
Include non-CO2 emissions in the ETS
The Slovenian MEP also proposes to tackle the non-CO2 climate effects of aviation (from nitrogen oxides, soot and sulphur particles, and water vapour).
He therefore wants the Commission to adopt a delegated act to set up a pilot monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) system for non-CO2 emissions and their impact on the climate, while developing a calculation method for translating these emissions into CO2 equivalent.
The Commission should then present a report on the results of this pilot scheme, accompanied, if appropriate, by a legislative proposal to introduce MRV requirements for aviation emissions other than CO2 and to extend the scope of the ETS to these emissions by 2026.
Furthermore, pending the implementation of a robust MRV system, the amount of CO2 that an emission allowance permits an aircraft operator to emit would be divided by an impact factor of 2. However, this would not apply to aircraft operators who agree to join the MRV pilot system.
Short-haul flights
The shadow rapporteur also introduces an amendment on short-distance flights.
According to this amendment, the Commission would be required to present a report assessing the environmental and climate impacts as well as the technical and economic viability of establishing specific requirements for regional and short-haul flights, while taking into account “alternative modes of public transport available to cover such services in a comparable time period”. These potential requirements would include the setting of higher minimum shares of sustainable aviation fuels as well as the possibilities of alternative routes for these types of flights.
See Mr Brglez’s amendments: https://aeur.eu/f/e3 (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)