Luxembourg - EU nations on Friday agreed to bring airlines into the fight against global warming from 2012, upsetting airline associations as well as the United States, whose carriers will be included.
From January 2012 all airline companies operating in or out of an EU country, including non-European carriers, will have to limit emissions to 97% of 2005 levels.
From 2013 that figure will dip to 95% with further
reductions envisaged later.
"The main objective of the new law is to reduce the impact of
aviation on climate change, given the rapid growth of this sector," EU interior ministers meeting in Luxembourg said in a joint statement following the decision.
However airlines are worried more about economic cooling than
global warming.
Carriers are furious about the plans which they say threaten their very survival as they struggle to cope with recent high fuel prices and have warned that it could spark trade wars with other countries.
Raising alarm
The decision came as the International Air Transport Association (IATA) released gloomy figures for air traffic in September, with the high oil prices exacerbated by a drop in demand fuelled by the economic crisis.
The figures for European carries were down 0.5% over the
same month last year while the global figure, for the normally rapidly increasing sector, dropped by 2.9%.
The Association of European Airlines has estimated that the cost could be as high as €5.3bn annually in the first years of the scheme.
The plans have also sounded alarm bells in Washington which has raised the prospect of launching litigation if Europe goes ahead with them.
"It is an international, multilateral issue," one American official said.
"Doing something bilaterally or unilaterally on that issue could have unintended consequences for people who aren't in the room. So we think it needs to be discussed in a broader venue and resolved that way."
The EU ministers, in a written statement, said the deal for
aviation in Europe "is only a first step towards (the) final goal of a global sectoral agreement concerning the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from aviation".
Buy emissions allowances
According to the plans, airlines will have to meet the pollution targets either by reducing their emissions or by buying carbon dioxide credits from other industries with surpluses.
Additionally, airlines will have to buy 15% of their
emissions allowances through auctions, although they will receive the rest for free.
However given the problems being experienced by the sector, amid historically high oil prices in the past months and with consumers suffering from the credit crunch, some exemptions and concessions were agreed in the measure, rubber stamped by EU interior ministers in Luxembourg.
New entrants, or fast-growing operators in the airline sector will have a 3% leeway in emissions.
Operators with "low traffic levels" will also be excluded from the scheme "in order to avoid disproportionate operating costs." This clause was included in part to aid airlines in developing countries.
The new measures also exclude emergency services, such as
search-and-rescue aircraft, fire-fighting and humanitarian aid flights as well as police, customs and military operations.
Members states have 12 months to bring their national laws into line with the new EU rules, which are already a compromise between the European Parliament and the bloc's 27 nations.
The aviation emissions system is part of a broader European Union scheme to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by 2020, from
1990 levels.
Currently aircraft produce 3% of all European greenhouse
gas emissions, although the European Commission has said that rate could double by 2020.
- Sapa