A refreshing perspective on the European Union’s Emissions Trading Scheme went largely unnoticed last week, when organizers of a conference call to discuss a new study commissioned by the German Marshall Fund of the United States canceled the event due to a lack of registrants. The cool reception might have seemed rather odd, given the stakes and the widespread lack of understanding of the issues at hand. Then again, few have shown much interest in really engaging in any thoughtful debate on the subject.
Funny, though, that even the Obama Administration has said so little about the ETS issue lately. Granted, it has taken a position against a unilateral move by the EU, and has espoused the popular notion that the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) should serve as the forum for any agreement. It knows full well, however, that 15 years of fruitless debate in ICAO has only delayed what legitimate climate change experts agree needs doing. The EU, to its credit, has taken the more principled position, one that it knew would draw condemnation from much of the international community and, indeed, from Europe’s own airlines.
Gregory Polek has spent his entire career in aviation journalism with AIN, starting as a proofreader and assistant to then-managing editor Mary Mahoney in 1995 after serving an internship with New Jersey Monthly magazine and completing his B.A. degree in English/Writing at New Jersey’s William Paterson College. By 1997 Polek accepted a position as an associate editor, covering the regional airline beat for Aviation International News in place of retiring industry veteran Don Anderson. The assignment took Polek across North America and Europe to profile regional airlines varying in size and mission from the likes of floatplane operators Kenmore Air and Chalk’s Ocean Airways to regional jet operators such as SkyWest and American Eagle. Today, in his dual role as Air Transport Editor and International Airshow Editor, Polek writes, edits, and manages AIN’s commercial aviation content while overseeing each of the company’s daily international air show publications in Paris, Farnborough, Singapore, and Dubai. Most recently Polek has assumed oversight of daily coverage of the Helicopter Association International’s annual Heli-Expo convention.
