Airlines join call for aviation pollution pact

By David Fogarty Reuters
Published: February 12, 2009

SINGAPORE: Four leading airlines and an airport operator called Thursday for aviation emissions to be included in a broader climate pact, after growing criticism from environmental groups that the sector was not doing enough to fight global warming.
The move is the first step by airlines around the world to steer the debate on an emissions pact toward a deal they are happy with, rather than having one imposed upon them.
Air France/KLM, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Virgin Atlantic and the airport operator BAA issued the call in Hong Kong and outlined a series of principles for a global deal for aviation.
Conservation groups like the World Wide Fund for Nature, say the aviation sector has not been doing enough to tackle its growing share of greenhouse gas pollution and that it should pay for its emissions like many other industries.
Emissions from international aviation contribute about 2 percent of global carbon dioxide pollution from burning fossil fuels.

Environmental groups and governments say airlines should be part of emissions trading programs, as a start.
"This is the first time a group of airlines has got together to call for aviation to be included in a climate change treaty," Dominic Purvis, general manager for environmental affairs at Cathay Pacific, which is based in Hong Kong, said during an interview.
"We're contributing to climate change and we need to play our part."
National representatives will meet at the end of the year in the Danish capital Copenhagen to try to agree on a broader climate pact to replace the Kyoto Protocol, the United Nations' main weapon to fight global warming. Kyoto's first phase ends in 2012.
Among the goals of the meeting is to find a way for developing nations to agree to emissions curbs and to include aviation and shipping, which together make up 5 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions, a fifth of which come from the United States, with six billion tons a year.
The UN International Civil Aviation Organization has been working for more than a decade to develop a global program to tackle aviation emissions.
Purvis said the four airlines would discuss existing proposals to curb emissions and feed the group's ideas to the international aviation agency and other airlines to try to settle on a fair and environmentally sound approach for inclusion at Copenhagen.
"The best thing is to have something effective and easy to apply and cost-effective, rather than to wait for someone else to come up with it and potentially take a course of action not necessarily appropriate for aviation," he said.
The four airlines and BAA are meeting in Hong Kong, and in a communiqué, the group laid out principles for a global approach that included balancing social and economic benefits of flying with the industry's responsibility to cut global emissions.
The airlines also said a new global climate deal for aviation must preserve competitiveness and avoid market distortions.
Many airlines say only a global approach is fair and criticize the European Union's decision to include aviation in the bloc's emissions trading program, starting in 2012.
Airlines will have to pay for their emissions over the entire route, not just within EU airspace, a rule that many Asian airlines flying long-haul routes to Europe say is unfair.