Open letter on Aviation and the environment: Call for action

With this letter, we urge ministers to engage in this environmentally highly relevant issue, on both the global and the EU levels.

Firstly, in order to speed up developments in ICAO and at the Climate Convention, we urge you to:

• Ask the Conference of the Parties to the Climate Convention to adopt a decision to resolve the allocation issue and include international aviation emissions in the budgets for emissions reductions of the Parties, alongside domestic aviation
• Actively support the European Commission’s position in ICAO/CAEP, including theintroduction of a charge system world-wide. The charge is administratively and politically easyto introduce and

Secondly, and in parallel to the global efforts, we urge ministers to act at the European level as follows:

• Interact with your fellow transport and finance ministers, who are also responsible for thisdossier, and agree on a common policy and follow-up actions at the EU level that would ensurethe introduction of an environmental charge for
• Ask the Commission in your next Council meeting to publish by the end of 2001 a proposal for a Regulation on the introduction of an effective European environmental aviation chargethat should become effective by