Environment
Crunch time for ICAO
This is a crucial year for the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) as it strives to arrive at a global solution to deal with aviation emissions. If it fails, Europe’s emissions trading scheme (ETS), currently frozen for 12 months for non-European carriers, will re-start in early 2014 reviving the threat of an international trade war.
February 1st 2013
There is growing optimism that a specific plan to combat aviation’s emissions on a global scale will be on the table at September’s International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Assembly. Read More »
It is also beginning to emerge that carbon offsetting, rather than emissions trading, may be the favoured option for states and industry.
The belief is that while emissions trading is technically the correct instrument, offsetting could be an interim approach on the road to a global emissions trading scheme. But the major challenge, according to observers, is not coming up with a plan. It is the political challenge of persuading the 191 member states to agree on a global scheme.
It is understood that a group of experts formed by ICAO last November, which was scheduled to meet for the second time late last month, is close to reaching a decision on a preferred scheme to put to the Assembly.
Consisting of officials from 17 countries - including China, India, Japan, Australia and Singapore – it has been looking at four options: mandatory offsetting of emissions from airlines, mandatory offsetting with some revenue-generating mechanism and two cap-and-trade systems.
While ICAO has been working on the possibility of a global ETS for more than a decade, the group of experts was selected last November after the European Commission (EC) stopped the clock on its controversial ETS, at least for non-European operators, in the face of unrelenting global opposition.
Airlines and non-European states accused Europe of breaking international law by charging for emissions outside its own airspace. But Europe said it would re-start the clock if ICAO failed to come up with global market-based measures (MBMs) to address international aviation emissions by the end of this year.
| 'It is understood that a group of experts formed by ICAO … is close to reaching a decision on a preferred scheme to put to the Assembly' |
The task of the group of experts was to get ICAO’s efforts into high gear and identify a preferred scheme. Among the alternatives it has considered are:
* Charging only departing flights from a state for their emissions. This is considered the most realistic of the alternatives and airlines would be charged on the basis of fuel burn calculated using a standard conversion factor to translate fuel use into emissions.
* Charging all international flights by operators registered in a given state. In a global scheme, each country would be responsible for accounting for the emissions of all its registered operators worldwide, based on fuel burn. It would require each country to agree to participate, something many observers consider extremely unlikely, given the extent of opposition to the EU law.
* Charging international flights on the basis of the nationality of airspace through which an aircraft travels. The weakness of this approach is that when aircraft are flying in international airspace emissions would not be accounted for, leaving about 50% of global emissions unregulated.
At a recent conference on European emissions markets held in Brussels, an EC environment official, Philip Good, who is a member of an ICAO MBM working group, said proposals were being developed that were technically feasible, “but the question is very much whether they will translate into something which is politically feasible”.
ICAO’s secretary-general, Raymond Benjamin, has pinpointed next month as the turning point “when we will put one option on the table”.
At a briefing in Geneva in December, International Air Transport Association director general, Tony Tyler, said the progress ICAO was making was putting pressure on airlines.
“How to fairly divide up the responsibility for market-based measures among airlines to achieve carbon neutral growth from 2020 will be a challenge,” he said.
“The current and future environmental performance of each airline has its own unique characteristics. Fuel efficiency varies by fleet age and composition. And future projections for emissions will vary widely if a carrier is based in a growth market or one that is mature.”
Special circumstances and respective capabilities of states have to be accommodated and provision has to be made for the least developed countries.
ICAO’s group of experts is not only looking at a global emissions scheme, but also at a broader “basket of measures” to help reduce emissions. These include sustainable alternative fuels, action plans by member states, an aircraft CO2 standard and future air navigation systems that will allow more direct routes save fuel and emissions. However, its priority is the MBM issue.
