Pollution limits imposed on airlines by MEPs

By Paul Eccleston
Last Updated: 6:01pm BST 08/07/2008
The cost of flights throughout Europe are to rise after MEPS voted to impose pollution limits on the airline industry.

For the first time it will bring airlines within Europe’s CO2 Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) aimed at cutting greenhouse gases.

Carbon trading could add to the cost of holiday flights
The European Commission said the decision was a big step in helping meet the EU’s legal obligation under the Kyoto Climate Agreement to cut its CO2 emissions by 8% from 1990 levels by 2012. But it acknowledged this would mean a rise in fares.
"Fully passing on costs to customers would mean that by 2020 airline tickets for an average return journey could increase by 4.60 euros (£3.65) to 39.6 euros (£31.4) depending on the journey length," said the Commission’s impact assessment report on the plan.
But Michael O’Leary boss of Europe’s biggest budget airline Ryanair said it would add up to £39 to the cost of an airline ticket without providing any environmental benefits.
The move also infuriated US officials and US-based airlines who said the EU had no right to force airlines using its airspace to abide by the ETS rules. From January 1 2012 all airlines flying in and out of European Union countries or flying within the EU, will be subject to CO2 limits.
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The biggest industrial polluters, mainly the big power companies, are already part of the ETS under which they are allocated emissions limits set for their sector. If they exceed their CO2 limit they have to buy extra permits to compensate for the pollution they cause. If they keep below their limit they are allowed to sell on their unused allowance. But until now aviation has been kept out of the scheme.
The industry accounts for only an estimated three per cent of total emissions they have grown by almost 90 per cent since 1990 and environmental groups have been pressing for them to be included. Aircraft emissions will be capped at 97% of their average 2004-2006 level, decreasing to 95% from 2013, subject to review.
Airlines will receive 85% of their emission allowances for free in 2012, but the percentage could be reduced from 2013, again, subject to review closer to the time.
The remaining 15% of allowances will be auctioned. Some flights will be exempt from pollution limits - light aircraft (take-off weight under 5.7 tonnes); emergency service, Customs and military flights; UN-mandated humanitarian flights; research flights; and all flights run by small airline companies producing "low" emissions (less than 10,000 tonnes of CO2 a year).
But official royal and Government flights will be part of the scheme: the agreement makes clear that pollution limits will apply equally to air travel "performed exclusively for the transport, on official mission, of a reigning monarch and immediate family, heads of state, heads of government and government ministers, of an EU member state." Small jets favoured by businessmen and rocks stars are alos included.
MEPs voted 640 to 30 for the scheme, which also includes none-EU airlines but it will have to be ratified by the 27 EU member states.
The European Regions Airline Association (ERA) said the cost of emissions trading for European airlines would be £5.6B in the first two years of the scheme and £72B over the 10 years to 2022.
"This legislation will impose massive additional costs on a transport industry that already has to bear unprecedented fuel costs." said ERA director general Mike Ambrose.
Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary, a bitter critic of environmental policies affecting the airline industry, said: "It is extraordinary that a bunch of MEPs who swan around between Strasbourg and Brussels, enjoy huge expenses and flight benefits, would vote to increase taxation on Europe’s consumers in a measure which won’t have any effect at all on the environment, but will further damage European airlines at a time when oil is already 140 dollars a barrel.
"These clowns in the European Parliament seem determined to destroy the European airline industry with these discriminatory taxation penalties. When aviation accounts for less than 2% of Europe’s Co2 emissions, and when airlines like Ryanair have invested heavily in new aircraft to reduce our emissions per passenger by 50%, there is no justification for this tax theft by the European Union."
The move was welcomed by the environment lobby but Friends of the Earth said emissions at 97% of 2004-2006 levels in 2012 would still leave CO2 output from aircraft 90% higher than 1990 levels while EU climate change commitments required an actual cut of 8% on 1990 levels. And giving away 85% of the emissions trading “permits” for free would mean unjustified windfall profits for the airlines.
Liberal Democrat MEP and environment spokesman Chris Davies said MEPs had responded to the "spectacular" pace of air traffic growth, adding: "Air travel across Europe has never been so cheap as it is now, but the real price will be paid by future generations if we don’t apply pressure to curb the rise in carbon emissions."