The United Nations body responsible for civil aviation weighed in against the European Union’s emissions trading scheme on Wednesday, increasing pressure on the EU to back down in what threatens to become a serious trade dispute.
After months of rhetoric on both sides, the UN’s International Civil Aviation Organization adopted a working paper from the United States, China and two dozen other nations urging the EU not to include nonEU carriers in its plan.
The ICAO said the paper had been adopted by “a clear majority,” although European countries had expressed strong reservations.
Under the EU’s proposals to put a price on pollution, airlines will have to buy permits to help offset greenhouse emissions from jetliners operating in, to and from Europe.
“It is disappointing that ICAO discussions once again focus on what states should not do instead of what they should do to curb growing aviation emissions,” Connie Hedegaard, the EU’s top climate action official, said in a statement.
“Unfortunately ICAO has missed again today the opportunity to tell the world when it will a viable global solution.”
The aviation industry on Wednesday also called for urgent action to prevent disruption to trade and tourism as a result of the plan, which has already sparked titfortat legislation in the U.S. Congress.
The EU rules are to take effect on Jan. 1, and the airlines said they could lose $1.7 billion US in 2012, or a quarter of this year’s profits.
Opposing nations say the plan would infringe a “cardinal principle of state sovereignty” by basing its charges on the distance flown by each flight, which means calculations would include foreign airspace, in violation of a 1944 pact that gives each country exclusive authority over its skies.
It would also discriminate against nations located furthest away from Europe.
Under the EU aviation plan, airlines would have to adopt an emissions trading scheme that has been running since 2005.
Airlines would be allocated tradable pollution allowances, with each permit representing a tonne of carbon dioxide. Each time a flight to, from or within the EU emits that much CO2, an allowance must be handed back from the same pot or acquired.
Airlines failing to obey face fines of 100 euros per missing permit, or 10 times their current market value. In extreme cases they could be banned from the 27nation bloc.
The 26 objecting nations warned of a “chaotic situation” as other countries tried to come up with competing schemes.
Tony Tyler, director general of the International Air Transport Association, which represents 230 airlines, said earlier that the industry was ready to adopt marketbased tools to control emissions, but urged the EU to act internationally.
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