Amid growing discontent regarding private jet travel (see EUROPE 13153/7), four EU Member States want to address the question of potential stricter regulatory measures on such travel. According to a document dated Wednesday 17 May and obtained by EUROPE, the Austrian, French, Irish and Dutch delegations have indicated that they wish to discuss this issue at the next Transport, Telecommunications and Energy Council on Thursday 1 June.
In the document, they referred to the joint efforts to be strengthened “to adequately address all sources of greenhouse gas emissions”, in line with the European Green Deal and the Paris agreements, which foresee reaching the goal of net-zero emissions by 2050 at the latest.
“The decarbonisation of aviation certainly constitutes one of the most challenging tasks ahead of us”, it says. “However, against the background of socio-ecological fairness and intergenerational justice, we need to step up our common efforts to accelerate the necessary transformation process of the aviation industry towards climate-neutrality, especially with regard to private jet travels which have a disproportionate environmental impact per passenger kilometre”, it added.
The Member States mentioned that the excessive per capita carbon footprint of private jets has been “subject to increased public criticism”. They hope to raise political awareness of the environmental impact of private jet travel, including business aviation, and to advance the debate on the industry’s effective contribution to the energy transition “to make sure that everyone contributes their fair share to the overall decarbonisation effort”.
Read the document: https://aeur.eu/f/71g (Original version in French by Anne Damiani)