By Barbara Lewis and Valerie Volcovici
BRUSSELS/MONTREAL Oct 2 (Reuters) – European countries
expressed support for an “imperfect” compromise to curb global
aviation emissions on Wednesday but still face pressure to drop
a key demand – to be able to apply the EU’s carbon trading
scheme to foreign air carriers.
Delegates to the U.N.’s International Civil Aviation
Organization (ICAO) are meeting in Montreal to try to hammer out
a global agreement to set a path toward creating a global
market-based mechanism by 2020 that would help limit growing
carbon emissions in the sector.
Debate at the U.N. body’s triennial assembly on Wednesday
focused on the most contentious aspect of a global deal – a
framework to allow national or regional market-based schemes to
apply to airlines before 2020.
The framework is needed to allow the EU’s Emissions Trading
Scheme (ETS), the only existing regional scheme that applies to
foreign carriers, to continue to function for the next seven
years.
Several EU delegates stressed that Europe has already
conceded a lot in negotiations by scaling back the reach of the
EU ETS to sovereign airspace rather than entire routes.
They voiced support for compromise text introduced by ICAO
assembly President Michel Wachenheim Wednesday morning to try to
clinch a deal by Friday, the last day of the assembly.
But a large group of countries, including India and China,
supported an alternative proposal made by Russia that would not
allow programs such as the EU ETS to apply to foreign airlines -
even if it only applies to sovereign airspace.
A delegate from Pakistan said that allowing regional schemes
to apply to foreign carriers – even for portions of sovereign
air space, violates the Chicago Convention, an international
treaty that ensures fairness for the global aviation sector.
A French delegate disagreed in his speech saying that there
is nothing in the convention that “opposes that states be able
to take measures over national airspace.”
A bloc of over 50 African states also raised sharp
opposition to an attempt by the ICAO assembly president’s
attempt to address festering concerns about which countries
would be exempt from complying with regional schemes, drawing
opposition from many countries.
His text aimed to exempt airlines from regional schemes based
on routes rather than country, and based on a hard number of
so-called “revenue ton kilometres” (RTKs) that would be reduced
each year after 2014.
That would replace an earlier plan to exempt countries that
account for less than 1 percent of global RTKs.
Englebert Zoa Etundi, Cameroon’s representative to ICAO,
told Reuters Wednesday that the bloc cannot agree to a text that
does not include the 1 percent threshold because it is necessary
to protect Africa’s burgeoning airline industry.
EU IMPLICATIONS
The outcome of the assembly will have implications for
international relations, aviation competitiveness and the EU
ETS, which is already struggling under a burden of surplus
carbon allowances.
The EU had decided to include foreign airlines in its
trading scheme after a decade of ICAO talks failed to reach a
deal on aviation emissions, which account for 5 percent of
global warming, according to U.N. data, and are expected to
triple by 2050.
But, after international outrage, the bloc agreed to suspend
for one year its law for intercontinental flights.
Sources close to the matter said Britain, France and Germany
- which represent some of the EU’s biggest aviation interests,
including IAG, Airbus, Deutsche Lufthansa
and Air France-KLM – were instrumental in
agreeing to that delay, and led the way for the EU to back down
again at the assembly.
While the three powers dominate the European Council of
member states, they have less influence in the European
Parliament, which has said it needs a strong deal.
WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY
Countries will resume debate on the text on Thursday.
European Commission spokeswoman Helen Kearns said any
agreement was unlikely before the very end of the talks.
“Europe has already been extremely flexible in agreeing to
stop the clock,” she told reporters. “In doing this we avoided a
probable trade war. We now have a very important window of
opportunity between now and Friday.”
UPDATE 1-Top EU powers backing down over aviation emissions-sources
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