Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Carbon Trading Extortion is Here!

Foreign airlines are threatened with a flight and landing ban from 2012 in the European Union if they do not participate in emissions trading.


"This is idiotic. The EU carbon trading cabal has decided to extort the rest of the air travel world starting in 2012. In a nutshell, they’ll ban flights from landing if the airlines don’t engage in carbon trading. It’s yet another variation of the “Plane Stupid” theme.


The ban is proposed in an internal document by the EU Commission seen by Handelsblatt. Summarised on nine pages, the guidelines describe how such a ban could be implement. The Commission considers a flight and landing ban as a last resort to make the airlines surrender over its Emissions Trading Scheme.

An EU Directive stipulates that airlines from Europe and third countries are mandated to be included in the trading of emissions rights. On their flights to and from Europe, they may then only emit as much CO2 as the CO2 certificates they hold. 85 percent of the certificates are free of charge while 15 percent of the allowances have to bought via auctions.


International resistance against the EU plan is growing. Several American, Asian and African airlines are suing the EU over its emissions trade project. The US Aviation Association ATA is attempting to have the policy suspended by the European Court of Justice. And the Russian government has also voiced its displeasure in Brussels.

Not even critics of the project believe that the European Commission will actually ban flights by American and other foreign airlines. The EU Commission is looking for a face-saving way out: “What remains are the costs of CO2 allowances, which will only burden European airlines and make them uncompetitive” Airlines such as Lufthansa and Air Berlin had already warned of this danger in the legislative process.


At the end of September, the general assembly of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) will take place. Some countries, such as the U.S. want to adopt a resolution, which will make clear that emissions trading systems may only be applied by mutual agreement.

See the full report at the above link.

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