Sustainability and Environment
Revised European Emissions Plan Draws Criticism from All Corners
The European Parliament proposes to assess all airlines for CO2 emissions while overflying 27 European Union members plus Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein, the North Sea and the Mediterranean – despite ICAO consensus to develop a global scheme by 2016.
The European Parliament proposes to assess all airlines for CO2 emissions while overflying 27 European Union members plus Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein, the North Sea and the Mediterranean – despite ICAO consensus to develop a global scheme by 2016.

Despite an apparent historic consensus at the ICAO Triennial Assembly in Montreal in early October to develop a global market-based mechanism for managing aircraft emissions, the European Commission (EC) has pressed ahead with plans to implement its emissions trading scheme (ETS) in the meantime. The key difference lies in the fact that the new policy would apply only to fuel burned within European airspace, rather than cover full intercontinental flights to and from European cities. But, crucially, it would still apply to non-EU airlines, provoking renewed resistance from the air transport industry, even though European officials always made clear their intention to take some form of limited unilateral action ahead of implementation of the envisioned worldwide system.