The aviation industry has been fighting last year's decision by the European Union to include aviation in its carbon trading program with everything it's got. But despite those efforts, it looks like airlines will be on the hook for their emissions beginning in 2012.
The EU Commission's environmental team has just released the list of aviation-related companies (.pdf) required to participate in the Continent's trading program. It includes most of the world's large airlines, as well as smaller carriers and companies like Wal-Mart and Coca Cola that operate commercial jet fleets. The release of that list is the first step in a multi-phase plan to get airlines set up to buy and sell carbon credits.
The EU's decision to include airlines in its big carbon trading party makes a lot of sense, especially in light of the industry's recent growth trends. Passenger numbers in 2007 were up a big 7.3 percent from 2006, and while the EU's total greenhouse gas emissions decreased three percent between 1990 and 2002, emissions from international aviation were up by almost 70 percent. Including aviation in the trading program would reverse that trend, forcing airlines to cut their emissions by three percent by 2012 and five percent thereafter.
The EU's list of airlines required to play the carbon trading game is surprisingly long, and runs the gamut from British Airways and
Lufthansa to Azerbaijan's Silkway Airlines and Angola's Air 26. Any airline that flies into or out of Europe is fair game, and that means US carriers like United and American will also have to pay, something that they're not happy about.
As it is currently structured, the plan will be a boon for some European countries while screwing others. That's because the EU is matching each airline up with a single European country responsible for selling credits to that airline when it exceeds its carbon limit. Big countries like the
UK and France will rake in cash from the hundreds of airlines they each oversee, while a country like Poland, which has been assigned only 45
airlines, will collect much less.
Although aviation's inclusion in the plan is a done deal, opponents are still making noise. Germany's influential Green
Party says that so far carbon trading hasn't actually done anything to reduce emissions in Europe, and the International Air Transport
Association claims that aviation's participation will cost the industry billions of dollars a year. The Air Transport Association says in its annual report (.pdf) that US airlines have cut their emissions without a fancy carbon trading plan.
On the bright side, carbon credits are a bargain right now, trading for around $13 a ton, down 40-percent from last year. That's because decreased production in polluting industries like manufacturing has given companies extra credits to sell, flooding the market and driving down prices. But analysts expect that once business picks up and the EU starts lowering emissions targets, that price will go up.
All the more reason for the airlines to continue working with plane manufacturers and engine makers to develop cleaner, greener aircraft and alternative fuels.
Photo: Flickr/delta407
