By Sarah Collins - 21st December 2007
Environment ministers have backed down from adopting more ambitious plans to curb airline emissions, put forward by the European parliament, in favour of less restrictive proposals.
Ministers agreed a package of measures for including pollution from air carriers in the EU's flagship emissions trading scheme, including an entry date, a cap on permits and the auctioning of allowances.
EU Environment commissioner Stavros Dimas was upbeat about the decision, despite widespread criticism that the proposals do not go far enough.
“We have shown our determination to go ahead with all those measures that are important to achieve our targets,” he said, referring to the EU’s commitments under the Kyoto protocol.
“We have strengthened our negotiating position and we are doing what EU citizens expect us to do.”
But Green MEP Caroline Lucas immediately condemned member states for being weak in its delivery of the plan.
“Coming just one day after the European commission’s woefully inadequate proposal to regulate CO2 emissions from cars, this decision casts further doubt over the EU's self-proclaimed global leadership on tackling climate change,” she said.
Parliament has roundly criticised the commission and national governments for not taking into account recommendations it made on the proposals in November.
Instead of a start date of 2011 put forward by parliament, ministers on Thursday approved a start date of 2012.
From that date, air carriers will be able to auction only 10 per cent of their allowances under the scheme, much less than the parliament’s recommended 25 per cent.
EPP-ED MEP Peter Liese, parliament's rapporteur said, “It is a pity that the same environment ministers who have never tired of underlining the urgency of action on fighting climate change are now postponing an important decision, albeit only for a year. It is also regrettable that there is no clear earmarking for the revenues generated by the ETS.”
Portuguese environment minister Francisco Nunes Correia, however, defended the agreement, saying that compromises had to be made.
“We tested several alternatives: some member states were willing to start by 2011, others wanted to postpone until 2013. That’s always the problem with negotiations, you need to find a middle point.”
Commenting on the earmarking of revenues, Dimas said, “The way the text was drafted will secure that the money that will be collected from auctioning will go to fight climate change or related activities.”
However, most controversial is the agreement to effectively give the aviation industry ‘permits to pollute’ at 100 per cent of the average rate of their past emissions in 2004-2006.
Parliament said in November that these allocations should only be 90 per cent of previous emissions, with further reductions year on year.
WWF advisor Delia Villagrasa accused the council of giving in to air carriers on the decisions:
“This is a Christmas gift to the aviation industry which should be required to do its fair share in tackling climate change. The sector’s carbon emissions are growing by four to five per cent per year, and ministers’ failure to grapple with this is completely at odds with the European pledge to reduce emissions by 20-30 per cent by 2020.”
Reports in the New York Times Friday of an EU-US rift over the proposals are based on the industry’s fear that rising costs will stifle European competitiveness. The US government also pushed for an international agreement first.
Dimas said that “aviation is very important in today’s world” and that he didn’t want to stop its growth but rather emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases from the industry.
Other measures agreed on include an exemption for operators with very low trading levels and a special reserve of free allowances for new entrants or fast-growing airlines.
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