Air travel – the fast route to climate change

Two MEPs debate the future of EU aviation policy

The aviation sector is already heavily burdened by the costs of the aviation infrastructure from airports and air control systems, which the airlines and in the end the customers have to carry, as well as the costs of security measures, not to mention rising kerosene costs.

To reduce the climate change impact of aviation it is more important and promising to develop a comprehensive package of measures including regulatory, economic, technological and operational instruments to address all impacts of aviation on the climate.

The step that has most urgently to be taken is the implementation of the European Single Sky legislation by the member states thus improving air traffic control and air traffic management with a view to raising the energy efficiency of flights, so that aeroplanes are not kept in holding patterns over airports, and reducing or avoiding vapour trails.

The aircraft industry should be encouraged in its further research and development to aim for cleaner engines and better fuel efficiency.

The European Union should support such actions in its seventh framework programme for research, technological development and demonstration activities.

The member states should re-consider the present situation of their airports and the further development of new airports.

In some areas there are unnecessary airports or even plans to build new airports that would serve no purpose. Such cases would only waste public subsidies and at the same time take away passengers from airports that still have free capacity. In this context the European Commission should now implement its own guidelines on regional airports.

Such measures will be more effective in reducing the climate change impact of aviation than the introduction of emission trading - which will primarily help the member states in their national budget problems.

Before the European Commssion presents any proposal it should immediately order and then evaluate an impact assessment on the specific parameters of an emission system for aviation. Such a study must examine the positive and the negative effects for climate change, for the aviation sector, but also for the economy as a whole.

If an emission trading system is to be presented for the aviation sector it would, for the EPP-ED Group, only be conceivable if such a system would, at least, be applicable to all flights to and from airports of the European Union.

This must be irrespective of the country of origin of the airline concerned. This prerequisite would ensure a level playing-field for operators with different route profiles, avoid distortion of the market in favour of flights to destinations outside the EU, ensure environmental effectiveness and prevent cross-subsidisation.

This is especially necessary to protect the European airlines against one-sided competition from third country airlines, particularly from the United States, China, Singapore, Australia, and the United Arab Emirates.

Whatever kind of emission trading system might be designed, the rules and regulations ought be easy to handle. Such a system should not be bureaucratic and therefore even more expensive for the aviation industry.

Such a system should not be based on an auctioning method. An auctioning system would only make the Emission Trading System more expensive for the aviation sector and in the end for the consumers. Moreover it would favour state-owned airlines because they usually do not have to consider the same principals of cost-efficiency as private airlines.

Since aviation is a global business with global effects also for climate change, the EPP-ED Group is primarily in favour of discussing and deciding on an emissions trading system for the aviation sector on an international level. Thus these questions should be brought forward at the next International Civil Aviation Organization meeting.

• German centre-right MEP Georg Jarzembowski is EPP-ED co-ordinator on the transport and tourism committee.

By Eva Lichtenberger

Despite continual reminders of the dangers of climate change, with an increasing number of floods, weather irregularities and natural disasters and the clear evidence of the role greenhouse gas emissions play in the process, there are still many who seek to bury their heads in the sand and shirk responsibility for their role in reversing climate change. None more so than the aviation sector.

Air transport is the fastest-growing source of greenhouse gas emissions, with flights predicted to double by 2020 and triple by 2030. However, airlines continue to avoid regulation of their emissions and even benefit from competition-distorting tax exemptions on their fuel and on VAT, while vociferously opposing all attempts to alter these anomalies.

Without strict and binding legislation, the increasing emissions from the aviation sector could undo progress being made in other sectors in reducing their emissions and undermine EU progress towards its Kyoto Protocol targets. Given the privileged status airlines have had to date, it will require a broad set of measures to ensure the sector takes responsibility for its climatic impact.

While emissions trading should play a part in this, it should not, in itself, be viewed as a panacea. Other measures will be necessary, for example training for pilots in take-off and landing in order to save energy consumption, technical developments, including sophisticated air-traffic management systems, and different taxation measures to end the exemptions enjoyed by the sector. To have fair competition between transport modes, we have to integrate the external costs in the whole pricing systems, as is being planned for waterborne transport and heavy goods transport on road and rail.

Emissions trading has the potential to play a useful role in reducing emissions from aviation but in order for this to be effective it will be necessary to introduce a new system, separate from the existing Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). A separate scheme is crucial because if aviation was merely included in the existing scheme the sector would have the economic power to buy up too many certificates from other sectors, passing on the cost directly to its customers. This would lead to unfair competition within the emitting industry as a whole and provide limited pressure for airlines to reduce their emissions.

The system has to be designed carefully to make sure that it really leads to the reduction of emissions. It should include strict caps on emissions and the auctioning of permits. Innovation in energy-saving technologies will be fostered if the airlines have to compete among themselves for carefully limited rights to emit. Since the climatic impacts of aviation are two to four times more damaging than the direct effects of CO2, any emissions trading scheme would have to be accompanied by measures to address the other effects (such as vapour trails and nitrogen oxides); for example, via a system of multipliers on CO2-figures. Emissions trading does make sense if it motivates airlines to save energy and to reduce hazardous effects. Of the other measures, ending the anomalous tax and financial privileges enjoyed by airlines - such as the tax-free status of airline fuel (kerosene), VAT exemptions on air tickets and the generous subsidies to airports - will play a crucial role. We have to foster fair competition between transport modes in Europe by reducing the privileges of aviation. This might diminish the enormous growth in air transport but this will be a necessary bi-product for an effective climate policy.

Naturally, airlines will continue to resist effective measures to reduce their emissions. However, their arguments about the negative effects regulation could have on the global competitiveness of European firms could be easily overcome if we succeed in integrating in an emissions trading scheme all arriving and departing flights and all flights that use European airspace.

Either way, failure to address rising aviation emissions is not an option. If allowed to grow unabated, the rise in emissions from the aviation sector would neutralize more than a quarter of the reductions required by the EU's Kyoto target by 2012. These growing rates in aviation as a whole are not compensated by technical developments in fuel efficiency. So, clearly, regulatory incentives are needed to spur the necessary technological advancements and ensure that airlines start making serious efforts to reduce their emissions.

• Austrian Greens/European Free Alliance MEP Eva Lichtenberger is a member of the Parliament's transport and tourism committee.

Two MEPs debate the future of EU aviation policy