Carbon

07
Sep

The EU agreed to a deal late Wednesday to scale back its law regulating carbon from flights as U.N. negotiators pledged to craft a global pact on aviation emissions that would not take effect for seven years. EU officials agreed at U.N. talks in Montreal to only include emissions from flights over European airspace in the bloc's Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), said the EU's top climate official Jos Delbeke, a move that would scale down a law that covers all flights to and from Europe. The deal, which still needs to be signed off by a full meeting of the U.N.'s aviation body ICAO ending Oct. 4 and by EU lawmakers, drew fire from green groups and sparked a renewed threat of legal action by European airlines. "There are bits and pieces of that text that make everybody unhappy. So it's maybe not too far away from an ideal compromise," said Delbeke at an event at the EU Parliament in Brussels. The deal falls short of the worldwide pact the EU had hoped for in November 2012 when it exempted foreign flights for one year to give ICAO more time to strike a global deal and avert The agreement will force airlines to surrender more ...

04
Sep

Talks at the U.N.'s aviation body must bridge a deep divide between developed and emerging nations over airline emissions to avert the threat of a carbon trade war with the European Union. After more than a decade of debate at the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), there is little sign emerging powers China and India are ready to pay to pollute. Failure to get a deal would open the way for the European Union to resume international implementation of its own law that makes all aviation using EU airports buy carbon allowances. The last time it tried to enforce the law over frustration at a lack of ICAO progress, the EU faced counter-measures and the suspension of Chinese orders for Airbus jets. Some orders are still frozen. In response to claims it was breaching sovereignty, the EU suspended the law, but said it would re-impose it unless the ICAO found an alternative. With time running short before the EU has to decide what to do, the ICAO will hold a preliminary meeting on September 4. That in theory will finalize the ground work for an outline global deal at the triennial general assembly beginning on September 24 at the ICAO headquarters in Montreal. But still ...

25
Jul

Diplomatic talks on a deal to curb greenhouse gas emissions from the global aviation industry have intensified recently as EU and U.S. officials try to stave off the threat of a trade war, lawmakers and observers said. Peter Liese, a member of the European Parliament from the conservative German Christian-Democratic Union, led a delegation to meet with Obama administration officials in Washington last week to discuss the issue. Ads by Google The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the United Nations' civil aviation body, has until September to complete a resolution on a market-based plan that would curb rising greenhouse gas emissions from global airlines. Should the UN organization fail, the European Union could try to re-impose an emissions trading system on global airlines. The EU postponed the implementation of the law in 2012 to give the ICAO time to devise a global approach. Liese sees only a 50 percent chance the ICAO talks can deliver a deal strong enough to avoid a revival of the law and avoid threats of a trade war. "Unless we have progress in the next six to seven weeks, we will run into a big problem," Liese told Reuters. Liese said drafts of the resolution that ICAO assembly delegates will consider at ...

24
Jul

Diplomatic talks on a deal to curb greenhouse gas emissions from the global aviation industry have intensified recently as EU and U.S. officials try to stave off the threat of a trade war, lawmakers and observers said. Peter Liese, a member of the European Parliament from the conservative German Christian-Democratic Union, led a delegation to meet with Obama administration officials in Washington last week to discuss the issue. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the United Nations' civil aviation body, has until September to complete a resolution on a market-based plan that would curb rising greenhouse gas emissions from global airlines. Should the UN organization fail, the European Union could try to re-impose an emissions trading system on global airlines. The EU postponed the implementation of the law in 2012 to give the ICAO time to devise a global approach. Liese sees only a 50 percent chance the ICAO talks can deliver a deal strong enough to avoid a revival of the law and avoid threats of a trade war. "Unless we have progress in the next six to seven weeks, we will run into a big problem," Liese told Reuters. Liese said drafts of the resolution that ICAO assembly delegates will consider at their triennial ...

07
Jun

The European Union’s regulatory arm proposed to set the quota for international carbon credits at the lowest level allowed by law after imports aggravated a record glut of permits in the EU emissions-trading system. Participants in the world’s biggest carbon market will be entitled between 2008 and 2020 to use United Nations’ credits totaling up to 11 percent of the EU permits granted to them for free in 2008-2012, according to a draft regulation published by the European Commission yesterday. They may also opt to choose as the limit the amount of imported credits allowed under national permit allocation plans for 2008-2012, if it is higher. The commission decided not to use an option provided for in the EU emissions law to allow additional imports of UN credits, according to the draft sent to member states for consideration. Climate experts from national governments are set to discuss the measure at their next meeting in Brussels later this month, the commission said. “The total EU ETS import limit for 2008-20 will probably be lower than our current estimate,” Richard Chatterton, an analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance, said by e-mail yesterday. “The exact import limit is unlikely to be known until end-2013 as it ...