The EU reached a landmark agreement on Thursday to cap emissions from aircraft, raising the stakes in an increasingly ferocious battle with the US over how to regulate global greenhouse gases.
In the first requirement of its kind, all airlines arriving or leaving from airports in the EU would be required to buy pollution credits beginning in 2012, joining other industrial polluters that trade in the European emissions market. That includes non-European carriers like American Airlines and Singapore Airlines.
Including airlines in the system is the boldest move yet by Europe to stamp its environmental policies on the rest of the world.
For consumers, such rules could mean further fare increases in the wake of a steady rise in fuel surcharges imposed by airlines — a trend that looks set to continue.
“At the end of the day, it’s the people who fly” who will pay more under the new system, warned Anthony Concil, a spokesman for the International Air Transport Association, the industry’s biggest lobbying group.
US officials warned that the requirements probably would be illegal under the convention governing international civil aviation.
“The mandatory application of the European Emissions Trading System to US airlines and airlines of other non-European countries is, we think, both contrary to international law and ultimately unworkable,” said Robert Gianfranceschi, a spokesman at the US mission to the EU in Brussels.
The compromise was reached on Thursday by representatives of the European Parliament and by European governments represented by Slovenia, which holds the revolving presidency.
It states that Europe “should continue to seek an agreement on global measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from aviation,” a copy of the text seen by the International Herald Tribune said.
The proposal still needs the approval of the European Parliament and individual countries. But people involved in the negotiations said those steps were likely to be a formality.
Including airlines is also a victory for European regulators, who are seeking to include more polluters in the system. That could help blunt criticism by those who see the EU as unfairly targeting heavy industry. The carbon trading market, which was started in 2005, caps the overall amount of pollution emitted by industries like electric utilities and steel makers.
Concil said the costs to the airline industry of buying permits to comply with European emissions regulations would be more than US$4 billion. Imposing new, costly rules on airlines was “incredible” at a time when the industry is expected to lose more than US$6.1 billion this year, he said.
Opponents argued that the plan would be an ineffective regional effort tackle a problem that requires a global solution. European airlines and charter companies also have said they would be at disadvantage to overseas competitors that operate fewer European routes.
Giovanni Bisignani, the director-general of the transport association, took out full-page ads in newspapers this week calling the plans “crazy.”
Bisignani said that the aviation industry was already doing enough to reduce its carbon footprint by investing in new technology and using less fuel. He said negotiations on the creation of an emissions trading program for the world’s airlines should be conducted by the International Civil Aviation Organization, a UN body.
The European Commission, Europe’s executive arm, which first proposed the rules, has said a global deal would take too long. European officials are determined to put forward their own plans, which would cover the emissions from aircraft flying both legs of journeys to and from major destinations like London, Paris and Frankfurt.
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