20 December 2006 - Proposals presented by the European Commission today to include CO2 emissions from aviation in the EU’s emissions trading scheme (ETS) have been described as "a hugely wasted opportunity" by the European Parliament’s spokesperson on aviation and climate change, Caroline Lucas.

"Last-minute wrangling between members of the European Commission has ripped out the guts of the legislative proposals, meaning that they will not be nearly as effective as they could have been ," said Caroline Lucas, who drafted the position on aviation and climate change that was adopted by the European Parliament on 4 July 2006.

"Key elements of the legislation have been watered down or even removed."

She was particularly critical of the plans to delay the introduction of full geographical coverage of all flights to and from EU airports.

"A two-staged approach, with one year of intra-EU flights only, is both environmentally damaging and legally unnecessary", she said. " It also contradicts the position adopted by the European Parliament in July, which expressly calls for all flights landing or taking off from EU airports to be included, whatever their origin or destination. Instead of pandering to US opposition, the Commission should be showing real leadership on climate change, and demonstrating that the case for including third country carriers in the scheme is both environmentally essential and legally robust. "

Unlike the Parliament’s proposals, the draft legislation places no limits on the aviation sector’s buying from other industries in the emissions trading scheme , and will also allow the airlines to make enormous windfall profits by trading permits given to them for free – while at the same time contribute to rising emissions from non-CO2 sources.

Dr Lucas said: " Without limits on the number of permits the airlines can buy up from other sectors in the emissions trading scheme, emissions from aviation will continue to grow at the expense of other industries. This is especially worrying because, a s well as emitting CO2, airlines produce other greenhouse gases which mean their total contribution to climate change is two to four times higher than that of most other industries. By failing to introduce parallel measures to address aviation’s non CO2 emissions, and instead treating aviation’s emissions as equal to those of other industries, these proposals will actually result in a net disbenefit to the environment."

The European Parliament had called for explicit parallel measures to address aviation’s non-CO2 impact, or at least a "multiplier" factor on the CO2 emissions.

The Commission’s proposals also provide for less than 3% of total allowances to be auctioned, running entirely counter to the polluter pays principle:

"The proposal will also give practically all the allowances to airlines for free, showing that the Commission has failed to learn the lessons from the current emissions trading scheme. By passing on the market price of allowances even though they didn’t pay for them, the airlines will generate billions in windfall profits, without any corresponding benefit to the environment.

"This is effectively going to reward the airlines for their contribution to climate change, and allow them to increase total greenhouse emissions ."

The proposals require adoption by the European Parliament before taking effect, but MEPs are unlikely to endorse them while they run counter to their clearly stated view that all flights into and out of the EU should be included, and that the non-CO2 emissions should be taken into account.

Dr Lucas added: “These measures are supposed to be about combating aviation’s growing contribution to climate change – but they fall far short on this in their current form. This is an issue on which the Parliament must endorse proposals before they take effect and, as author of the Parliament’s position, I will be pressing strenuously for our view to prevail.”

ENDS