From next year, all flights taking off and landing in the EU to be included in the emissions trading scheme.
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Bringing aviation into the European Union’s emissions trading system will have a “minor” impact on ticket prices, the European Commission said today (7 March), as it announced the carbon-emission limits that airlines will face when they join the scheme next year.
From 2012, all flights taking off and landing in the EU will be included in the emissions trading scheme, meaning they will face legal limits on their carbon dioxide emissions.
The Commission today announced the limit in tonnes of CO2 for 2012 and 2013. In the first year, the cap will be equivalent to 97% of airlines’ average annual emissions in 2004-06.
The airline industry has responded positively to the decision. “I don’t think we are particularly unhappy with this figure,” said David Henderson of the Association of European Airlines, a pan-industry group representing companies including British Airways, AirFrance and Lufthansa.
The figure published today was higher than the draft figures, he said, because the Commission had included emissions from auxiliary power units, the small engines used to provide lighting and air-conditioning when a plane is on the runway.
The Commission said that today’s decision would have a minor impact on ticket prices: it estimates that by 2020, the price for a return flight within the EU could rise by between €1.8 and €9.
Henderson at the AEA disputed these figures, saying that “the impact on ticket prices is likely to be higher” although “each individual airline will approach this from its own point of view”.
But green transport campaigners saw a missed opportunity. Bill Hemmings of Transport and Environment, a clean transport campaign group, said inclusion of aviation in the scheme was no more than “a minor first step”.
He said: “Aviation, by far the most polluting transport sector, still operates in a European-wide fuel and VAT tax haven…in times of fiscal austerity these subsidies are more irresponsible than ever.”
Emissions from aviation make up around 3% of the EU’s greenhouse-gas emissions, but including other effects, such as NOX emissions and contrails, would push this figure up.
Connie Hedegaard, the European commissioner for climate action, said in a statement: “Emissions from aviation are growing faster than from any other sector, and all forecasts indicate they will continue to do so under business as usual conditions.”
The announcement of the cap ends a long dispute between officials and the aviation industry over how the limits should be calculated. A legal deadline of August 2009 came and went as the two sides argued about aviation’s historic carbon footprint – the basis for working out future carbon limits.