Tony Carnie
THE EU said yesterday it would not back down on its controversial plan to levy the world’s first carbon emission “taxes” on international airlines from next month.
The new emission measures would come into effect on January 1 for all airlines flying into or out of European airports – including SAA.
Speaking at the UN Conference of the Parties (COP17) climate change summit in Durban, senior EU climate negotiator Artur Runge-Metzger said there was “no possibility” that the 27 member nations of the union would reconsider the matter, despite a legal challenge in the European courts by at least two American airlines and further challenges expected from Chinese airlines.
Although the EU describes the new Emissions Trading Scheme as a “market-based mechanism” rather than a carbon tax on aviation, the effect would be to progressively raise costs for airlines unable to reduce emission levels.
The exact implications on ticket prices for South African passengers are still unclear, although the European Commission said last month that increases were likely to be “modest”, somewhere in the region of $1.40 (R12.04) to $8.60 per ticket each way on long-haul flights.
Nevertheless, the new measures have come under strong attack from the aviation industry and several governments.
The international aviation sector, which accounts for at least 2 percent of human greenhouse gas emissions, has managed to escape mandatory curbs on carbon emissions under the UN’s Kyoto Protocol – although there has been renewed pressure in Durban to tighten the carbon net on all aviation emissions.
Responding to suggestions that the new scheme might induce several airlines to shift connecting hubs to airports outside Europe to escape the charges, Runge-Metzger said this risk had been considered carefully and the EU did not believe the new costs were big enough to warrant most airlines diverting their flights. “Passengers don’t want to fly out of Paris or Frankfurt to another airport (outside the EU) and then get on to another aircraft,” he said.
Runge-Metzger said little had been done over the past decade to regulate aviation emissions and the EU “hopes to convince our colleagues in Durban that more can be done”.
The EU said it believed that the International Civil Aviation Organisation should regulate aviation emissions, but the emissions scheme was an interim “second-best way” to accelerate the international approach.
All the same, the EU has come under sustained fire from several delegates. On Monday, the Cuban delegate (speaking on behalf of Argentina, China, Brazil, India, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Egypt and Algeria) said emissions from both aviation and shipping should be in accordance with Kyoto Protocol principles, which draw a distinction between emissions from richer developed countries and those in developing nations. Cuba said in a joint statement that the new EU system undermined the spirit of multilateralism.
The Third World Network daily COP17 news bulletin reported that members of the Chinese delegation also expressed “firm opposition” to any unilateral or mandatory actions that would constrain the growth of international aviation. Bloomberg news agency reported that Venezuela also described the measure as “a bomb”.
“I don’t agree that when one is frustrated, one should throw a bomb that can cause lots of problems on an international level,” said Claudia Salerno, the chief Venezuelan negotiator.
Japan also attacked the scheme.
“It’s okay for the 27 EU members to comply with it, but not for us, because we didn’t decide it,” Kuni Shimada, special adviser to the Japanese Environment Minister, told Bloomberg.
