Aviation carbon trading plan will sell the climate short

Plans to bring aviation into the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) will barely affect the rapid growth in aviation's carbon emissions.

Tyndall report cover

Independent researchers at the respected Tyndall Centre calculated the total carbon the EU will be able to emit during 1990-2050 to play its part in preventing climate change.

It looked at how improvements in aircraft efficiency and the aviation ETS proposal could help achieve the necessary cuts in emissions.

Tyndall found that:

EU aviation emissions could have grown by 25-60% between 2005 and when the full ETS comes into operation in 2012.
Even if the price of carbon in the ETS increases substantially, the current proposal will hardly affect the growth in aviation emissions.
Improvements in aircraft technology and air traffic control must happen much quicker.

Friends of the Earth says:

MEPs and the EU Council must ensure that the ETS is strengthened by:

Using a 1990 emissions to calculate allowances in line with the Kyoto protocol and other industrial sectors.
Auctioning of all carbon permits to the aviation sector so that the ‘polluter pays' and doesn't benefit from windfall profits.
Covering all flights to and from EU airports by 2010 at the latest.
Doubling the amount of permits airlines must buy to account for non CO2 impacts of flights.

Other action will also be necessary to remove aviation's unfair tax exemptions.

Resource

Aviation Emissions Pathway in a Low Carbon EU
(PDF† - 1.27MB) Sep 2007
A major report from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research on how the EU Aviation ETS proposal needs to be improved so that aviation can play its part in achieving a low carbon EU

Summaries of this report are available in the following languages:
English (PDF† - 295K)
Deutsch (PDF† - 269K)
Español (PDF† - 263K)
Français (PDF† - 269K)
Italiano (PDF† - 266K)
Nederlands (PDF† - 262K)
Polski (PDF† - 334K)

†To view PDF files you will need to download Adobe Acrobat Reader. Visually impaired users can get extra help with these documents from access.adobe.com.

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