Climate Talks: Aviation

By Kristin Qui, Environmental Defense Fund Tom Graff Fellow, International Carbon Markets Last month, the 36 countries that make up the Council of the UN’s International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) adopted the set of rules that will guide the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA). Known as the Standards and Recommended Practices […]

Sectoral scale REDD+ programs meet or exceed proposed CORSIA offset Two important climate change initiatives are advancing and their future success looks more and more intertwined. The Carbon Offset Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA) of the UN’s International Civil Aviation Organization’s (ICAO) is approaching the end of a policy-making phase to finalize environmental criteria […]

In the middle of terrifying weather headlines – mega-forest fires in California, serial super-hurricanes slamming the Caribbean, heat waves in the Arctic – it’s more important than ever to achieve large-scale reductions in carbon pollution, fast. Two new international accords are starting to move industry and governments in the right direction – the UN Paris […]

The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the UN agency charged with setting standards for international flights, has set a goal of “carbon neutral growth from 2020” – i.e. capping net emissions at year-2020 levels. The ICAO Assembly today adopted a global market-based measure that lets airlines purchase high-quality emission reductions to offset the carbon growth above the […]

Government negotiators met in Montreal last week to seek agreement on a global cap on carbon pollution from international aviation. Bilateral negotiations are continuing, and text of a draft resolution is expected to be considered at the triennial meeting of the UN’s International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) in early October. In anticipation of these meetings, Carbon & Climate […]

A window of opportunity may be opening to secure sustainable financing – from an unusual source – to support national, state, and provincial-level efforts to Reduce Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+). The global airline industry is seeking international agreement on a program to cap the carbon dioxide emissions of flights between countries, and […]

Thousands of words have been written this week about a new efficiency standard recommended by a technical group of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). The standard, if adopted by ICAO’s executive council, is intended to require aircraft manufacturers to start producing more efficient airplanes. But one picture makes clear that even with the new […]

If international aviation were a country, it would be a top ten emitter of carbon dioxide (CO2), on par with Germany or the United Kingdom. And it’s expected to grow enormously: with more than 50,000 new large aircraft slated to take to the skies, its emissions are expected to triple or quadruple by 2040. In […]

Carbon pollution from airplanes creates risks to the general public’s health and welfare, according to a preliminary EPA finding released this week. But the aviation sector itself is particularly vulnerable to the rising seas, higher temperatures, and intense weather events brought by an overheated atmosphere. Experts have been warning for years about risks airports and […]

By Rafael A Grillo Avila, Environmental Defense Fund & James Beard, WWF-UK If international aviation were a country, it would be a global top-ten carbon emitter, with emissions expected to triple or quadruple by 2040. This is why the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has agreed to cap net carbon emissions from international aviation at […]

The United Nations agency for aviation today launched a three-year effort to achieve a global market-based measure to cap the climate pollution of international aviation. After nights of lavish receptions – a testament to the financial robustness of international aviation – delegates finally got down to the hard work of negotiating a resolution on how […]

The aviation industry can affordably meet and beat its goal of halting carbon emissions growth from 2020 if it uses high-quality, low-cost carbon offsets, according to a new analysis from Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF). Our analysis comes on the heels of a consolidated industry call for the governments of […]

Environmental Defense Fund and Natural Resources Defense Council today echoed the new call by the International Air Transport Association (IATA), a trade body comprising 240 airlines worldwide, for governments to agree this September on a single global cap on emissions of international flights to take effect in 2020. The NGOs issued their call in response to a resolution, […]

By Annie Petsonk

Greenhouse gas emissions from airplanes are no small matter: if the aviation industry were a country, it would be the seventh largest emitter of carbon dioxide in the world – and a new report shows us the worst is yet to come.

The report released today out of Manchester Metropolitan University shows international aviation emissions are projected to increase by anywhere from a substantial 50% to a whopping 500%, and that means the aviation industry won’t be able to get anywhere near meeting its own modest commitments to reducing its emissions – unless it adopts a global market-based measure.

The aviation industry has voluntarily committed to achieve no net increase in emissions from 2020 onward and to halve its emissions by 2050 from its 2005 levels through, it says, efficiency improvements including improved air traffic management, on-board technologies and biofuels.

However, the study, from Professor of Atmospheric Science and Director of Centre for Aviation, Transport, and the Environment (CATE) David Lee, Ph.D., shows emissions from the sector are projected to roughly triple, and make it impossible for airlines to meet their own commitments. Even with speculatively optimistic scenarios for such efficiency improvements, Lee found:

 None of the measures, or their combinations, for any growth scenario managed to meet the 2020 carbon-neutral goal, the 2005 stabilization of emissions goal, or the 2005-10% stabilization of emissions goal at 2050.

The maximum reductions over [business-as-usual] technology and operational improvements were clearly achieved by the extension of the existing [market-based measures] out to 2050. (page 22)

This means the aviation industry is now facing a huge gap between emissions it can reduce through efficiency improvements and its goal of carbon neutral growth from 2020.

Just take a look at this telling figure from Lee's report, which shows that even under the most optimistic technological scenarios for improving the efficiency of international aviation, emissions for the years 2006-2050 are expected to increase dramatically:

As Figure A1 from the report shows, even under the most optimistic technological scenarios for improving the efficiency of international aviation, emissions for the years 2006-2050 are expected to increase dramatically. The most aggressive uptake of operational and other technologies as well as biofuels still yields a yawning gap between projected emissions (lower boundary of green shaded area) and the emissions targets on the table, whether those are the targets proposed by governments (horizontal pink lines) or by the industry itself (horizontal grey ladder). Source

So, how can the aviation industry bridge the gap?

Industry spokespeople assert that from 2021, this gap could be filled through a market-based measure. However, the industry also seems to want to delay developing any serious global market-based approach until the gap is looming to be filled.

Lee sees the handwriting on the wall: there is no other way to fill the emissions gap than market-based measures. Our European colleagues at Transport & Environment agree, saying:

The only remaining means to bridge this emissions gap would be to extend market based measures like emissions trading on a global basis.

This measure already has support from EU Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard, as well, who said last week in a trip to the United States, that that "we of course want a global, market-based mechanism" for reducing aviation emissions.

The gap will need to be filled, and the time to construct the gap-filling mechanism is now. Lee’s study makes crystal clear the futility of waiting until 2021 to construct the market-based measure, as the airlines have advocated. If airlines simply delay dealing with the issue until 2021, when demand for gap-fillers takes off, they risk substantially higher prices for filling those gaps. And in an industry famous for its thin profit margins, delay – and its attendant higher costs – really isn’t a welcome option.

Airlines that want the flexibility to determine how best to meet the gap – for example, those that want to begin saving emissions now, in order to draw on those reductions for the future – ought to throw their weight behind the development of a global market-based mechanism in the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).

Airlines, countries — including the United States – and environmental groups have all agreed aviation emissions should be addressed in ICAO, so we’ll be looking to the Administration to reach a global agreement, and to reach it quickly.

By Jennifer Andreassen

President Barack Obama yesterday signed into law Senate bill 1956, the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme Prohibition Act of 2011. The new law, as we've covered before, authorizes — but does not require — the Secretary of Transportation to prohibit airlines from participating in the European Union's anti-pollution law.

If it were ranked as a country, the aviation sector would be the world’s 7th largest source of greenhouse gas pollution. Pollution from aviation is rising 3 to 4 percent per year. Image source

In a statement after the signing, the White House said:

The Obama administration is firmly committed to reducing harmful carbon pollution from civil aviation both domestically and internationally …

The Administration remains focused on making progress in reducing aviation emissions through the appropriate multilateral forum – the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) — and we welcome the recent progress there in establishing a new High Level Group charged with accelerating negotiations on a basket of measures that all countries can adopt at the next ICAO Assembly meeting in September 2013 to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from aviation.

EDF and leading environmental groups WWF, Earthjustice, and Natural Resources Defense Council said in a joint statement "now is the perfect time to make a global deal happen," and underscored their "readiness to work with all stakeholders to get the job done."

Responding to the bill's passage and signing just weeks after Europe "'stop[ped] the clock' on the implementation of the international aspects of its ETS aviation" to facilitate international discussions, EDF's international counsel Annie Petsonk said:

Unlike the bill that passed here in the U.S., Europe’s stop-the-clock on its law aims to ‘create a positive atmosphere’ for the international talks.Now the spotlight is on ICAO, and on whether the U.S. will step forward with the real leadership needed to drive agreement on an ICAO program to cut aviation’s carbon pollution.

The background section of our joint statement has a good summary of the EU law, progress in ICAO and S.1956:

Background:

Aviation is a significant source of global warming pollution and is one of the fastest-growing sources of greenhouse gas emissions if left uncontrolled.  If it were ranked as a country, the aviation sector would be the world’s 7th largest source of this pollution, which is rising 3 to 4 percent per year.

Europe’s Aviation Directive, which includes aviation within Europe’s economy-wide Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) from January 2012, is a pioneering law that holds airlines accountable for emissions associated with commercial flights that land at or take off from EU airports.  The program is projected to reduce carbon pollution equivalent to that produced by 30 million cars by 2020.

On November 9, the 36-nation Council of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) decided to form a high-level advisory group to provide guidance on crafting an international program to reduce emissions from aviation, with the aim to adopt an agreement at their next triennial Assembly in September-October 2013. In response, the European Union announced it would stop the clock for one year on the implementation of its law capping the carbon emissions of international flights landing and taking off from European airports.

The preceding developments render irrelevant S. 1956, U.S. legislation signed today authorizing the U.S. Secretary of Transportation to prohibit U.S. airlines from taking part in the European emissions program.  If the Secretary of Transportation were to implement the prohibition outlined in the bill, it would require unlawful behavior on the part of U.S. airlines and would risk igniting a trade war with the European Union. However, the bill also puts the U.S. government on record supporting efforts to secure an international approach to reduce aviation’s global warming pollution.

By Jennifer Andreassen

The U.S. House of Representatives tonight passed a bill that authorizes the Secretary of Transportation to prohibit airlines from participating in the European Union's anti-pollution law. EDF called the bill superfluous — the EU yesterday paused its carbon pollution law that was the target of the U.S. bill — and warned it sets a bad precedent for U.S. foreign relations.

The European Union Emissions Trading Scheme Prohibition Act of 2011 at best is superfluous, and at worst undermines respect nations need to have for each other's laws, EDF's Annie Petsonk said after the House passed the bill. Photo credit

The EU paused its law following the International Civil Aviation Organization's (ICAO) setting in motion a high-level political process aimed at agreeing on a global program for cutting aviation carbon pollution by October 2013.

EDF’s International Counsel Annie Petsonk said in EDF's statement in the House:

Now that ICAO has moved into high gear its effort to get a global system for limiting aviation’s carbon pollution, and the EU has stopped its clock pending the ICAO outcome, at best this bill is simply superfluous. At worst, it undermines the respect that nations need to have for each other’s laws in a globalizing world.

President Obama signaled in his reelection acceptance speech that there is an opportunity for revitalized executive branch leadership on the challenge of climate change.

The aviation question, one of the first climate issues after the elections, puts the spotlight on the White House, which will need to put significant political muscle into helping ICAO reach agreement on a worldwide approach to address aircraft emissions.

The airlines who lobbied so hard for enactment of this bill should join with environmentalists in agreeing on that global approach.

The European Union Emissions Trading Scheme Prohibition Act of 2011 gives the Secretary of Transportation authority to prohibit U.S. airlines from complying with a European law requiring airplanes that land or take off from European airports to account for and limit their flights’ global warming pollution through an emissions trading system.

The bill also requires the Secretary of Transportation to hold the airlines "harmless" of any costs, including both the costs of complying with the European law, estimated to be trivial, and the costs of not complying. The “hold harmless” provisions could launch a wholly unnecessary trade war and stick U.S. taxpayers with up to $22 billion in non-compliance costs.

Before the bill came to the House floor tonight, Petsonk talked to POLITICO, which reported:

Petsonk has long been predicting ICAO would be confronted with the decision, likening the process to past global environmental law cases that began with bilateral bickering but eventually spawned a global dialogue. That means the U.S. should not yet be patting itself on the back about forcing the EU’s hand.

“The EU didn’t say, ‘We’re ending the system.’ They said, ‘We’re giving the ICAO process time’” to work on the issue, Petsonk said.

That means congressional action on a bill that has been in a recess-induced lull for weeks is likely to pass Congress just days after the real progress was made internationally. “It’s like a Fifth of July firecracker,” Petsonk said of the bill.

Aviation is already the world's seventh largest polluter, and if emissions from the industry are left unregulated, they're expected to quadruple by 2050.