EU Planning to Charge Airlines for Carbon Emissions

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Beginning in January 2012, the aviation industry will join the European Union’s Emissions Trading System (ETS). Carriers flying in to and out of the European Union will be required to keep track of the fuel they burn, report it to EU authorities, and pay up for any emissions that are over the cap set by the EU. The law applies to all airlines, whether they are headquartered in EU or not, and that has some non-EU airlines upset.

“What we’re doing is bringing the airline sector into a cap and trade system, a carbon market system, to reduce emissions and incentivize the sector to be energy efficient,” says Isaac Valero Ladron, a spokesman for Climate Action at the European Commission.

Valero says that the EU has been fighting for years to get a global deal on emissions at the UN’s International Civil Aviation Organization, or ICAO.

“This is a global problem, and requires a global solution. But progress at ICAO has been very little, and the European Union and its 27 member states have decided to act,” Ladron says.

But the EU did not want to put its own carriers at a competitive disadvantage, so it decided to make all airlines report their emissions, and pay up if they exceed the cap.

“In essence, that will place an exorbitant, and in our view illegal, tax on our airlines, says Nancy Young, vice-president of environmental affairs at the Air Transport Association (ATA), a trade group representing the largest US airlines. The ATA is part of a lawsuit against the emissions trading scheme that is now before the European Court of Justice.

“It’s basically a violation of our country’s sovereignty, and the international treaty that governs international aviation, for the EU to regulate extra-territorially that way,” Young says.

Look at this way: If an American carrier flies from New York to London, only a small percentage of the flight would be in the EU. Why, the argument goes, should the US carrier be held responsible by the EU for the emissions from the entire flight?

Bill Hemmings, with the Brussels based group Transport and Environment, says it is impractical to try to geographically divide airline emissions.

“Whether an aircraft flies from Los Angeles to New York, or it flies from Frankfurt to London, or Paris to Marseille, they’re all emissions,” says Hemmings. “They all go into the air, and they can’t be tracked to any particular source, so you need to look at them in their totality.”

There is one way US carriers could get around this – improve efficiency and pollute less.

“It’s really disappointing to see the US airlines turn to litigation to resolve this,” says Pamela Campos, who is with the Environmental Defense Fund. The group is part of a global coalition fighting the US airlines in the European court case.

“When you go visit your friend’s house, you play by her rules,” Campos says. “There’s an opportunity here, and United and Continental, the airlines behind this, can lead the way. They can show other American companies how to compete in a global market that has carbon constraints.”

American carriers estimate that the EU’s carbon plan would cost them a little more than $3 billion over eight years. They say that might not seem like much, but the industry is already hurting, and any extra cost is a hit.

And it is not just American carriers that object to the carbon plan.

Ulrich Schulte-Strathaus, secretary general of the Association of European Airlines, notes that Russian, Chinese and some other carriers have also expressed concern. Schulte-Strathaus says a non-EU country could refuse to cooperate.

“If the third country were to say, ‘we are now going to insist that our airlines are not covered.’ And then the EU reacts by saying, ‘we will enforce compliance, we will impound the aircraft, we will refuse traffic rights, you might not fly into the European airspace.’ Well, in that case, of course, you have the makings of a trade conflict,” Schulte-Strathaus says.

For its part, the European Commission says it is confident the carbon plan will hold up in court.

An initial ruling in the case is expected Thursday.

http://www.theworld.org/2011/10/eu-planning-charge-airlines-carbon-emissions/

[Obama 2012 1,714]

and guess who this is a tax on...... *drum roll*

The middle-class!!!

YAY EU!!!!

idiots.

Seriously, anyone who follows this 'carbon emissions' and global warming bullshit is mentally ill.

[Ban Hammer 13,349]

can anyone guess who just killed air travel on that continent?

[mawilson 2,133]

Anything to get extra €€€

[one...two...tree 2,762]

and guess who this is a tax on...... *drum roll*

The middle-class!!!

YAY EU!!!!

idiots.

Seriously, anyone who follows this 'carbon emissions' and global warming bullshit is mentally ill.

The rapid acceleration of the warming of the planet from anthropogenic greenhouse gases are in the billions already and continue to increase....idiot.

[Dave-n-Oksana 49]

This is another attempt of the EU to get the World to increase their tax revenue. First the Financial Industry with a Global tax and now this.

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

The EU is pretty intelligent. These are the same tards who told MS to remove IE off of Windows. MS did and the EU chumps couldn't dl another browser for the fact they had nothing to get on the internet with in the first place. This is the same EU who's going broke bailing out Greece. Intelligence is a foreign word to the EU.

Yes, let us follow in the path of the EU so that we can go down even quicker than we already are.

Edited October 4, 2011 by Why_Me

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Looks like the Canadians are in on the scam as well.

Canadians face a high economic cost from the impact of a warming global climate, and the country should act quickly to reduce the financial price by investing in adaptation measures, a federal advisory panel warns.

In a report released Thursday, the National Roundtable on the Environment and Economy forecasts that climate change will have a variety of increasingly harmful impacts, from flooding in low-lying coastal regions and threats to Canada’s timber supply, to health problems caused by worsening air quality.

“We are already affected by climate change and will be by the carbon already in the atmosphere, so we already face physical changes to our environment and economic costs as a result,” said David McLaughlin, chief executive at the roundtable.

“The sooner we move to invest in the right kind of adaptation strategies where these impacts are going to be the greatest, then the better we will be in a position to reduce those economic impacts and make those costs lower to Canadians.”

He said the world needs to quickly achieve an international treaty to limit the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, in order to reduce the cost of climate change impacts. Countries will gather in Durban, South Africa, this year in another attempt to reach an accord on a global strategy, but they face serous division and the real potential of the United Nations-based process collapsing.

The national roundtable is a federally appointed agency that conducts research and provides policy advice. Among the panelists are several former Conservative politicians, including Bob Mills, who retired as an MP in 2008, and vice-chair Mark Parent, a former environment minister in Nova Scotia’s Conservative government.

Under a high emission scenario, the national roundtable calculates that Canada will face climate-related costs equivalent to 1 per cent of its economy by 2050 and 2 per cent of GDP by 2080. And there is a 25 per cent risk the costs could be far higher, as well as a similar probability they would be much lower.

Even a low-emissions scenario would result in economic costs equal to 0.8 per cent of GDP by 2050, and nearly 1.5 per cent by 2080.

http://www.ctv.ca/generic/generated/static/business/article2183729.html

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

Everyone here who's in favor of paying higher cost for your airplane tickets please raise your hands. I mean it's not like any of us here travel much seeing how this is a immigration site...

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Uh-oh...looks like Japan is also in on the scam.

Emissions bill, urging '11 carbon tax, gets nod

Kyodo News The government formally approved a bill Friday that would aim to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent from 1990 levels by 2020 on condition that all major emitters set similarly ambitious targets, and introduce a carbon tax next year.

The bill on basic policies to curb global warming, adopted at a Cabinet meeting in the morning, also sets an 80 percent emissions cut target for 2050 and calls for measures to realize medium- and long-term goals, including the introduction of an emissions-trading scheme, a carbon tax and the promotion of nuclear energy use.

"The greatest aspect (of the bill) is that it stipulates a 25 percent cut," Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama told reporters.

"The most important thing is to have the public share such a perception."

The bill, however, left room for allowing setting an emissions ceiling per unit of production for some industries in designing a specific emissions-trading scheme, although the approach has been criticized by environmental groups.

While calling in principle for setting an overall ceiling for emissions to ensure a reduction, the bill also seeks "consideration" of a ceiling per unit of production, which may lead to an increase in emissions as output grows, apparently in view of business concerns.

http://search.japant...20100313b2.html

Edited October 4, 2011 by DFH

[Obama 2012 1,714]

oh nvm.. so not worth it.

Edited October 4, 2011 by DJ Kyo

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

awww, did i get your panties in a wad there Steven?

[one...two...tree 2,762]

oh nvm.. so not worth it.

Whats the matter? Running out of countries to boycott?

[SMOKE 1,426]

Whats the matter? Running out of countries to boycott?

who gets the money? & what are they going to do w/ it?

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

who gets the money? & what are they going to do w/ it?

Hopefully they choke on it, but if they don't maybe they can take those extra funds and put it towards creating an Airbus plane that doesn't nose dive into the ocean every time the wind starts blowing more than 45+mph.