Brussels presses for cap to aircraft carbon emissions
by tour93 | November 23rd, 2004
Pressure is growing within the European Union to push the aviation industry to limit the amount of carbon dioxide it produces.
Peter Vis, acting head of the industrial emissions unit at the European Commission, said yesterday in London that the impact of bringing the aviation industry within the remit of the Union’s carbon-emissions trading scheme was being investigated.
It would be too late to bring aviation into the first round of the scheme, which starts in January 2005, but it might be possible to include it in the next round from 2008. Under the scheme, industries such as power generation and cement-making have a limit imposed on the amount of carbon they can produce in a year.
It has been suggested that individual airlines should have caps like any other industrial entity.
Any company wishing to produce more than its allocation must buy carbon allowances on an internal EU market, where companies that have reduced the amount of carbon they emit can sell their excess allowances. Fines will be levied on companies that produce more than their allocation without valid allowances.
Aircraft produce large quantities of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, blamed for global warming. They also produce nitrogen oxides and water vapour, which can affect the climate by causing condensation trails from jets. However, nitrogen oxides are not covered by the EU’s emission trading scheme and the effects of water vapour are not well understood. BAA, the airport company, said yesterday that support for bringing aviation within the trading scheme was growing, but any move should also consider the effects of nitrogen oxides and water vapour. Care should be taken not to create incentives for airlines to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide they emit in a way that could increase nitrogen oxide output, the company said.
Mr Vis yesterday told an emissions trading conference in London that the EU’s caps on carbon emissions should be set low enough to ensure there was a scarcity of carbon, in order to give companies an incentive to reduce their greenhouse gases.
If this did not happen, it would become more expensive for European member states to fulfil their obligations to cut carbon dioxide emissions under the UN-brokered Kyoto protocol on climate change, set to come into effect on February 16.
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