Airline carbon tax to stay: EU
Lending support to the European Union plans to charge airlines for carbon emissions, European Union environment commissioner Janez Potocnik emphasised that the Emission Trading Scheme (ETS) was introduced to help
ensure it reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 20 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020.
“The EU will not change its policy that mandates all flights by non-EU carriers to and from an airport in the territory of an EU member state to be in its emissions trading system. If you don’t comply, you have to pay,” said Mr Potocnik.
India, along with a group of 26 countries, including the US and China, are strongly opposed to this decision and plan to lodge a formal protest against the EU’s new rules at the UN’s International Civil Aviation Organisation’s executive council’s next meet. According to the new EU plans, all airlines flying into or out of EU airports, from January 2012, will have to surrender permits to cover all the Co2 they emit during the entire flight. “We are willing to talk about it but there is no question of going backward,” said Mr Potocnik.
Trying to downplay the levy, Mr Potocnik said, “The levy will work out to around 2.5 euros,” maintaining that the EU would exempt airlines from countries that have adopted climate policies deemed equivalent to Europe’s targets.
But the Opposition to the EU’s aviation rules is getting more vociferous. Minister of environment Jayanthi Natarajan warned that such a rule “smacked of protectionism”. “We have expressed grave reservations against this decision and do not subscribe to it. We intend to raise it during the forthcoming COP 17 meeting at Durban,” said Ms Natarajan.
Several nations including India are of the view that aviation should be regulated on a global level through measures approved of by all the ICAO countries.
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