Divergent views among ICAO member states leaves substantive MBM agreement by 2013 hanging in the balance

Officials from 17 countries are working with ICAO to shape an agreement acceptable to its 191 member countries to reduce aviation’s carbon footprint through market based measures (MBMs).  ICAO needs to agree on progress by its September Assembly meeting. Progress has been glacially slow over the past decade, and there appears to be no real progress now.  A high-level group (HGCC) of senior officials and negotiators was set up last November to accelerate discussions and find compromises between states on MBMs, but its process has now ended.  It appears that very little progress had been made and there were significant diverging views. GreenAir reports that Russia’s representative firmly rejected MBMs and even called for a reassessment of ICAO’s 2% annual fuel efficiency goal. Some ICAO representatives remained mildly optimistic that some form of an agreement could be reached by ICAO Assembly by September, with further progress towards a global scheme being achieved by 2016. It appears a number of differences between ICAO member states in key areas have not been resolved by the HGCC and time is running out for full consensus by the September Assembly – realistically it seems unlikely..

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Divergent views among ICAO member states leaves substantive MBM agreement by 2013 hanging in the balance

24.5.2013 (GreenAir online)

A very comprehensive and thorough article – some extracts below – full article at  http://www.greenaironline.com/news.php?viewStory=1694

Two conferences in Montreal last week provided an opportunity for ICAO Council members to publicly explain their respective country’s position on current attempts to form an agreement on the application of market-based measures (MBMs) to limit the growth of international aviation carbon emissions.

With the high-level group process now formally ended, Australia’s representative on the Council and Chair of the Council’s Air Transport Committee, Kerryn Macaulay, told delegates at the industry’s Air Transport Action Group (ATAG) Workshop that very little progress had been made and there were significant diverging views.

At the subsequent ICAO Aviation and Climate Change Symposium, Russia’s representative firmly rejected MBMs and even called for a reassessment of ICAO’s 2% annual fuel efficiency goal.

Other speakers, however, stated their optimism that some form of an agreement could be reached by the ICAO Assembly this coming autumn with further progress towards a global scheme being achieved by 2016.

Following a Council meeting last November, a decision was taken to establish the climate change high-level group (HGCC) of senior officials and negotiators to accelerate discussions and find compromises between states on MBMs.

This was seen by the EU as a positive enough development to allow it to temporarily suspend the application of its emissions scheme to intercontinental flights to and from Europe.

However, it appears a number of differences between ICAO member states in key areas have not been resolved by the HGCC and time is running out for full consensus by the time of the Assembly.

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(Macaulay) …told delegates at the ATAG Workshop there were three main areas where opinions on the application of MBMs differed:

  • Geographic scope – a number of governments have sensitivities over the sovereignty issue;
  • Who the participants should be; and
  • Addressing the ‘special circumstances and respective capabilities’ of developing states principle.

Macaulay said a report from the HGCC and an amended version of the draft resolution would be discussed at the next meeting of the Air Transport Committee slated for June 4. She said the meeting would attempt to find more common ground, reduce the number of square brackets and make recommendations to the Council for its meeting at the end of June, but described her Committee role on the issue as “chief herder of cats”.

She was not optimistic that many of the differing views would be narrowed down by the conclusion of the Council meeting but, she said, “we will work on the resolution right up to the start of the Assembly if need be.”

Cautioned Macaulay: “It is possible the resolution may go to the Assembly with not all the elements settled.”

As no further meetings have been scheduled, the future of the HGCC was uncertain, she said, and depended on guidance from the ICAO Council President and the views of the Council itself.

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A global MBM was but one of a host of measures, said Elina Bardram, Head of the Aviation and Maritime Unit, International Carbon Markets, at the European Commission. “We would like nothing more than for MBMs to become obsolete but this won’t happen without breakthrough technologies – that is just the reality,” she told delegates. “Also, these technologies may not be economically viable for the industry. MBMs do offer a flexible and effective mechanism for industry to contribute without compromising growth. That’s the beauty of an MBM and that’s why the EU introduced its emissions trading scheme.”

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The full, very comprehensive, article from GreenAir online is at  http://www.greenaironline.com/news.php?viewStory=1694

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Aviation officials see global emissions deal possible by 2020

 22.5.2013 (Reuters)
By Robert Evans
GENEVA (Reuters) – Senior officials from business and commercial aviation voiced cautious optimism that a long-sought worldwide framework to reduce aviation’s carbon emissions could be in place by 2020.
And a key negotiator for the European Union’s Executive Commission, which has been the focus of anger from many other countries over its emissions trading scheme (ETS), said she hoped a road map towards a pact would be agreed by this autumn.
The comments came on Tuesday at a discussion on prospects for a global deal eliminating the threat of regional or national rules, which aviation leaders say would be disastrous, at an annual European show for the international aviation business sector, EBACE.
“Eventually I think we’ll get there,” said Kurt Edwards of the International Business Aviation Council, IBAC, which groups plane and equipment makers and service providers for the multibillion dollar sector.
Guy Visele of the European Business Aviation Association, EBAA, agreed but argued that meanwhile his industry – which [says – as it always does – that it only] creates a tiny fraction of the emissions which contribute to global warming – should be treated less harshly by the EU.  [Every sector only produces a “tiny fraction” of the world’s CO2. The issue is that collectively they all add up to a huge total. See World Resources Institute chart . On that basis, aviation comes out as around 1.7%, and the cement industry is only 5% and all of road transport is only 10.5%.  A more realistic estimate of the impact of global aviation is 4.9%. see link  page 1].
Business aviation – in which a major role is played by big manufacturers like Boeing Europe’s Airbus, Canada’s Bombardier and Brazil’s Embraer  – has been seen by many politicians as a playground for the super-rich.
But its advocates say the industry, in the doldrums since the financial crisis of 2008/9 after a decade-long boom, plays a major role in world trade and that over 80% of its operations involve moving business people rather than elite individuals.
The EU, committed to combat the climate change blamed on carbon emissions, created an international storm when it said it would impose its rules from January this year on all flights to and from its territory.
China and India, among others, ordered their carriers not to comply and the United States said it would consider retaliatory action.
EU MEASURES SUSPENDED
The EU suspended implementation of the scheme, which would have compelled commercial and business aviation carriers from anywhere in the world to purchase offset credits for the carbon they emit over a set baseline for any flight arriving or departing European airspace.
At Tuesday’s EBACE discussion, Elina Bardram of the European Commission’s climate action division said Brussels remained committed to dialogue as the best way to achieve global agreement by 2020 through the United Nations’ International Civil Aviation Organization.  [ie. said nothing].
It has already suspended enforcement of its own interim scheme pending the outcome of negotiations at ICAO’s triennial assembly from September 24 to October 4, but has not yet made clear what it will do if those end in deadlock.
“The path remains challenging but we can remain confident that a road map will be agreed at ICAO if political rhetoric can be dropped,” she said.
Officials from 17 countries are working with Montreal-based ICAO to shape an agreement acceptable to its 191 member countries to reduce aviation’s carbon footprint through market measures.
Paul Steele, environmental specialist for the commercial airlines’ International Air Transport Association, IATA, and head of the Geneva-based Air Transport Action Group, ATAG, said considerable progress had been made in the ICAO talks but quick agreement was unlikely.
“We’re not going to get there this year. With 191 countries in ICAO, you’re not going to get agreement easily,” he told the EBACE session. But to reach the 2020 deadline, agreement was vital at ICAO’s next assembly in 2016, he said.
(Reported by Robert Evans; Editing by Phil Berlowitz)

http://in.reuters.com/article/2013/05/21/airlines-emissions-idINDEE94K0ET20130521

 

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More news about the EU Emissions Trading System at                                 EU ETS News Stories

See earlier:

The clock has stopped on aviation’s inclusion in the ETS: but where is ICAO now?

May 2, 2013    Following the European Parliament’s vote approving the Commission’s proposal to “Stop the Clock”, Conservative MEP Peter Liese, aviation EU ETS and “Stop the Clock” Rapporteur, hosted a public briefing for MEPs in Brussels on 24th April to review progress of the ICAO High Level Group on Climate Change (HGCC) formation. The conference was attended by Jos Delbeke (Director–General DG Clima), Prof David Lee (Manchester University), IATA’s Paul Steele and Green MEP Satu Hassi. T&E have written a report on the meeting. Unless things changed, and ICAO made rapid progress leading to a constructive agreement on both the need for a global market-based mechanism (MBM) to address international aviation emissions and for a Framework to govern national/regional schemes such as the EU ETS , then the original aviation Directive would “snap back” automatically next January. The Directive wouldn’t be amended “because of pressure from China, the US or Airbus”. Jos Delbeke insisted that if the whole problem couldn’t be solved now it couldn’t be solved later and, consequently, the credibility of ICAO’s global goals was squarely on the table.     Click here to view full story…

 

 

ICAO looks like wasting EU’s gesture

April 28, 2013 (Transport & Environment)

The EU has finalised the text of its ‘stop the clock’ concession on the inclusion of emissions from intercontinental flights in the ETS, although the chances of the gesture being wasted by members of the ICAO look greater with each day that goes by.
Intercontinental flights involving all EU airports were subject to emissions trading from 1 January last year, but because of complaints from the USA, China as well as major European carriers and Airbus, the EU made the gesture of suspending the requirement to include all emissions from intercontinental flights for a year, in the hope of achieving a global aviation emissions agreement at the triennial ICAO general assembly in   September.  But so little progress has been made that the likelihood of an agreement being reached by September is decreasing, and in that case the EU says it will re-start the clock and subject all flights to emissions trading. A ruling by the European Court of Justice in 2011 confirmed that applying emissions trading to intercontinental flights is perfectly legal.  ICAO’s lack of action is consistent with its record since it was given responsibility for tackling international aviation’s environmental impact in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.  link 

 

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